Hydra
by I'm Over There
Summary: To kill a snake, you must cut off its head. But that can't kill a hydra. Cut off a head and more grow in its place. And so, to kill a hydra you must cut out the heart. Or burn it. Sherlock Holmes, with his international reputation and homeless network, was a snake. Kill him and his body dies, too. Crime, however, was a hydra. Criminals, its heads. And Jim Moriarty, its heart.
1. Down Came The Rain

**BEFORE I BEGIN: I have to credit The Final Problem (finalproblem) on Tumblr for many of the ideas in this story. Links don't work on fanfiction, but I strongly urge you to look at the theories by The Final Problem because they gave me more than just the inspiration for this story, but the 'clues' to make it plausible. So again, please look up finalproblem on Tumblr. **

**Well, anyway. Since Keep Calm and Carrion (which I'm not discontinuing but it's already technically always on hiatus) wasn't the 'hit' TMATS was and I hoped it would be, I'm going to try again. **

**I'm going to write another Molliarty. **

**It won't be exactly the same as TMATS and it will have slightly different interpretations of Jim and Molly (but not drastically different) for reasons of the plot which you will hopefully read. **

**It, being this story, will also incorporate season three canon of ****Sherlock**** and present a new theory on how Jim Moriarty survived shooting himself in the head.**

**It will also present theories as to why he had to do this and also how (if anything) much Sherlock, Mycroft, Molly, and possibly others knew about Jim's faked suicide. **

**And in addition, it will also have some theories about how 'Mary Morstan' came to be in England, and how Lord Moran of ****The Empty Hearse**** and Charles Magnussen of ****His Last Vow**** knew Jim. Because there is no way they would not have been on Jim's radar.**

**It will be shorter, I think, I'll try to keep it under 20 chapters, but the chapters will be long. I will update this story as often as I can, based on the amount of reviews I receive and general interest in the story.**

**Long A/N over, now on to the story! I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

><p>"<em>Did you miss me?"<em>

"_Did you miss me?"_

"_Did you miss me?" _

The GIF of Jim Moriarty's face (mouth attempting to move) and the soundbyte (chipmunk sped-up, and demon slowed-down) repeated on every screen in the United Kingdom. People gaped in shock.

_Moriarty was supposed to be dead! _

(But then again, so was Sherlock Holmes.)

Upon seeing and hearing this, neither Mycroft nor Sherlock Holmes were as surprised as they could have been, and Jim Moriarty himself was not as happy as_ he_ should have been. Therefore all three could agree…

…_not good._

* * *

><p>… a few years earlier…<p>

* * *

><p>(February, 2012)<p>

When blindfold was removed from Jim Moriarty's eyes he found himself inside sickeningly square room made of metal and concrete. It was white like one of those stereotypical insane asylum rooms in television shows, but minus the padded walls.

His eyes did not need to adjust despite having been covered. It was dark in this room, the only light source the door that the men who had put Jim in this room were now walking out of. It shut, loudly, behind them and it was as if Jim was blindfolded again.

Jim was seated ('was seated' because they had sat him down, instead of allowed him to sit by offering him a seat like proper gentlemen) in a metal chair, which his hands were handcuffed behind. The key to the handcuff was clenched inside his fist, he had taken it from one of the men's pockets while they were dragging him into the room.

They had handcuffed him in the black limousine that the pretty girl ("Anthea" she had called herself…and then admitted that it wasn't her "real name") had requested he get into.

After uncuffing himself with expert precision, Jim stood up from the metal chair and let the cuffs fall dramatically to the ground.

He then took the key and walked to the nearest wall (all four walls were the 'nearest walls' since the room was a square and the chair was in the center, so Jim just picked a random one) which he carved the name 'Sherlock' into as many times as he could without the letters overlapping (which was hard to do in the dark) before moving on to the next wall.

This would convince Mycroft Holmes that he was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes (which was true, of course, but Mycroft had to _believe _it).

One of the walls seemed to be a window, made of glass not metal or concrete, so it meant that someone was watching Jim (in the dark, he didn't know how, but they were, they always were). And so he didn't carve into the glass. He didn't want to obscure their view.

They left Jim in there in the dark for a day, or so, maybe more.

Jim had no way of telling time. His watch and designer clothing had been taken from him, in a different well-lit room full of footsteps and voices that Jim had not been able to see (as he had still been blindfolded at the time). They had taken his suitjacket, buttondown, slacks and shoes. Jim wished he had worn prettier underwear. Or gone commando, just to mess with them.

He was in boring white undershirt, black socks, and briefs. (Yes, Jim Moriarty wore briefs; it was too much fabric to wear tight suitpants and boxers. Real men wore pink and real men wore briefs (and, sometimes, pink briefs.))

Jim had slept in the cold on the floor in his underclothes. Another wild night in the life of Jim Moriarty, consulting criminal.

Finally, the stream of light from the door peaked into the room like an uninvited guest. Jim didn't move from the floor. He kept his eyes closed, feeling the light on his eyelids, warm and red.

He listened to the approaching guest—guests. Two men, heavyset (muscular not fat), wearing boots. He didn't_ need_ to open his eyes. He could visualize the marching robots, programmed to follow orders without asking why. Just like everyone else in the world.

_Including Jim. _

He wasn't so special that he had never accepted any social norms.

A kick in the stomach 'awoke' Jim, eyes bursting open to be kicked by the light as his abdominal region had been by the boot. He looked up at the man it belonged to. A forgettable, emotionless face. Jim matched it.

"Up." The man ordered, he and his clone in fake military uniform (as if it would fool Jim into thinking the military had arrested him).

Jim didn't respond or move.

The men hoisted him up from under his shoulders and brought him back to the chair. One of them the found the handcuffs and key, using them to rebind Jim's arms behind the chair.

Jim said nothing.

Neither did the men. They liked to 'talk with their hands', apparently.

They punched him for an hour or so, maybe less (and it just felt longer). And then they left him without even asking a single question. When they were finished, they uncuffed him and left him to return to the floor.

After a week of these one hour a day punching sessions, bland meals, and darkness Jim was successfully disoriented. He didn't know what time it was, what day it was, or what he was thinking getting into the car with that woman.

Just what Mycroft Holmes wanted.

Finally, the British Government entered the dark room, bringing in light with him.

Jim squinted, eyes adjusting, standing up from the cold concrete floor when he heard the expensive leather shoes of the man he had been waiting for. He turned to face him.

"Hello there, Mycroft Holmes, nice to finally meet you." Jim greeted, cordially. (And he was impressed, too, because even in the darkness he could tell that Mycroft's suit was of almost as good quality (and high price) as the suits he wore.)

"And here I thought you had lost your voice, Mr. Moriarty." Mycroft replied, a bit surprised but trying not to show it on his cautious face. (He looked nothing like his brother, Sherlock. Jim wondered if they had ever asked their mother any questions growing up, perceptive boys as they must have been.), "You didn't answer any of our questions."

"You didn't ask any." Jim said, flatly.

"Oh, of course." Mycroft chuckled, feigning embarrassment, "My mistake."

"I suppose it's your revenge for what I did to your baby brother a few months back, isn't it?" Jim guessed, "How protective of you."

"Speaking of my 'baby brother', I'm sure he would appreciate your foray into interior design." Mycroft complimented, eyeing writing on the wall, "It's much like those teenagers who put up posters of boybands in their rooms and scribble the names of their crushes into their school desks. Sherlock does love admiration—of course he has John for that and John doesn't scratch the walls and blow up buildings to profess his.

"And that's why John will never be enough for him." Jim smiled.

Mycroft sighed.

"Have a seat," he offered, like a proper gentleman, gesturing to Jim's enemy the metal chair.

"Thanks." Jim politely accepted, sauntering over and plopping down. Jim _sat._ He was_ not_ 'seated'.

"When you played your 'game' with Sherlock," Mycroft began, stepping towards Jim (who was not restrained physically or mentally and so could _pounce_ at any moment), carefully, "you had bombs and an army of snipers at your command. And yet you put up no resistance when my people arrested you. Why?"

"You're a genius." Jim goaded, "You figure it out."

"You no longer have bombs and an army of snipers at your command." Mycroft figured it out, "You revealed yourself, and so your Criminal Network as well, to Sherlock and the public and so your Criminal Network has turned against you. You wanted to get arrested for your own protection. That's why you made up that ridiculous story about a keycode that could hack into anything, so that we would come looking for you."

"Very good, Mr. Holmes." Jim clapped, "You're almost as smart as your brother."

"Smarter." Mycroft corrected.

"Why arrest me, though, if you knew the code is fake?" Jim checked.

"Since your own Criminal Network wants you dead, I'm hoping you wouldn't mind giving up everything you know about them." Mycroft requested.

"I'm no rat." Jim smirked, "…I'm a businessman. I don't give anything up for free. Know what I mean, Mr. Holmes?"

"You give me the information, we give you protection." Mycroft stated, "Fair trade."

"Protection?!" Jim snorted, "I've been beaten daily." He stroked one of the bruises on his cheek, gliding down the magenta mark it with two fingers until he touched his cut lip. "Besides, just having me here is a fair trade enough for the 'protection'. You get to impress your bosses for capturing the beautiful and dangerous Moriarty!" He stretched out his arms like a performer would before a bow. He was hideous in his current disheveled state. _But was he still dangerous…?_

"I don't have 'bosses'." Mycroft scoffed, "I have _clients._ I work for them but they don't outrank me in any real sense. They simply pay me to help them."

"Clients, ooh." Jim repeated, raising his eyebrows, "Following in your little brother's footsteps, then?"

"I've done this longer than he has." Mycroft returned, slightly smugly, "Sherlock is following mine." He folded his arms, "But let's stay on topic, shall we? Tell me why you believe your presence enough warrants us protecting you?"

"Because it impresses your 'clients'." Jim reiterated, "I already told you. You get me, I get protection. See how this works? Now if you want information…._I_ want information."

"And what information do you want?" Mycroft questioned.

"Information about Sherlock Holmes." Jim requested, "The stuff I can't get from following him around, or rooting through his messy flat while he's out on a case. The _good stuff." _

"Why would I tell you anything about my own brother?" Mycroft asked.

"Because you hate him." Jim attempted.

"Yes." Mycroft admitted, "But I also love him. Family is like that. Of course, you wouldn't know…"

Jim chuckled.

"…You're a strange man, James Moriarty." Mycroft continued, changing the subject and circling Jim in the metal chair like a hawk would its prey, "You don't accept the currency most criminals of your caliber do; you just distribute and exchange it. You deal it, but don't take it. Instead, you deal in sentiment. A dangerous thing. More so than money, goods, services or information."

"Oh, how so?" Jim inquired, somewhat boredly. Now that he had gotten his joke out of the way, he had brought one of his feet up to plant on the metal chair so that he could rest his chin on his knee. This wasn't working very well, because the smooth fabric of his sock was sliding against the smooth surface of the metal, but somehow Jim was managing.

"Goods, services, money, information…they're all basically the same; things you can exchange for other things—usually_ also_ goods, services, money or information." Mycroft explained, "They can all get you killed, but sentiment can do worse. Because you cannot exchange sentiment with another person. You cannot force someone to care about the things you do, any more than you can force yourself to care about something—or force yourself not to. Someone can trade you something, or someone, you are sentimental about for a good, a service, money or information, but you cannot trade it back. And you don't necessarily know or have access to something, or someone, that they are sentimental about. And so, that leaves you vulnerable. They know your weakness."

"And what is my weakness, Mr. Holmes?" Jim asked the question with the obvious answer, "I know you know it. But I want you to say it."

"Sherlock Holmes." Mycroft answered the question with the obvious answer.

"_Wrong!"_ Jim declared (quoting one of the worst Superman movies, with one of the best incarnations of Lex Luthor), apparently the obvious answer was not so obvious, "Sherlock Holmes is _your _weakness. Sure, I love the dear detective to death and all—literally—but he doesn't make me weak. He makes me strong. Pushes me to be at my best, the same way I push him."

"So what is your weakness, then?" Mycroft asked.

"Me." Jim answered, "Myself and I. I am my own weakness."

"Arrogance at its finest, I see." Mycroft commented, rolling his eyes.

"I've never told anyone that before, you should feel flattered." Jim added, "I work hard to make the world think I don't care about anything, not even myself. That way, they never bother to threaten me with torture or death. That way, they fear me as an inhuman monster…It worked. For a while, at least—"

"Until 'the world', meaning your Criminal Network, didn't want to _threaten_ you with death anymore." Mycroft completed, "'They' just want you dead and don't care how you feel about it. In fact, now you've revealed yourself for the true coward you are, running to and hiding in my custody."

"Exactly." Jim confirmed, unashamedly, "So now that you know my weakness and I know yours, we can make a trade. Sentiment for sentiment. Quid pro qou." (He couldn't help throwing in a Silence of the Lambs reference, given his Hannibal Lector like situation—not that Mycroft was much of a Clarice…)

"I give you Sherlock, or information about him at least, and in return you give me information about you?" Mycroft tested, "No thank you. I couldn't possibly care less about your past. I want your Criminal Network, Mr. Moriarty."

"And that's what you'll get, or information about it at least." Jim returned, "Because I'm not my _past,_ Mr. Holmes, I'm _my network._ The international criminal enterprise I built all by myself for myself. _That_ is Jim Moriarty. Not a boring childhood. I didn't even go by the same name, then!"

"I believe we've talked ourselves in circles then, for we're right back where we started." Mycroft realized, "Again, why would I give you information about my own brother?"

"Because you want information about my Criminal Network." Jim said, "…and because you think of yourself as a man above the trivialities of 'sentiment' as you call it. A man with no weaknesses. Why_ not_ give information about your own brother to me? You don't _care,_ do you? And you wouldn't want your 'clients' to think you'd put your brother above the commonwealth—above_ them_ and their ends—would you? There is so much you can do with every detail about my Criminal Network. There is absolutely nothing you can do with every detail about Sherlock Holmes…except give him to me and get my Criminal Network in return. One man for an empire. It's an offer you can't refuse." (Now Jim was paraphrasing another criminal in another movie; more famous than Silence of the Lambs and _much _more famous than Superman Returns.)

"You're correct." Mycroft accepted, nodding once as he closed his eyes in brief regret, he then opened his eyes to look directly at Jim Moriarty, "You have a deal."

* * *

><p>(March, 2011)<p>

After chatting in the rarely used comments section of Molly Hooper's gratuitously cutesy and pink blog, Molly Hooper and Jim Moriarty met in the canteen of Saint Bartholomew's hospital at an ungodly hour (2:00 AM) of the morning.

Jim, of course, was just using Molly to get to Sherlock Holmes. But he wasn't even originally going to do that until he had linked to Molly's blog from John Watson's blog and decided that he was obligated to mess with the poor pathologist because of how pathetic and desperate for Sherlock she seemed. This would be fun.

The canteen was deserted. Jim had wandered the halls of the hospital (after breaking in because he didn't actually work here) until he found it. It smelled like mop fluid instead of because it had already been cleaned for the night, the assembly line—no, _buffet_—was also closed down for the evening and only the paltry coffee machine was still on. Of course, the coffee itself (and the water) had to be put inside it and made.

Jim Moriarty did not make his own coffee (or anyone else's, for that matter). But tonight (this early morning, really) Jim Moriarty was not Jim Moriarty, he was Jim from IT and Jim from IT was the kind of overzealous suitor who made coffee for, and to impress, a girl. (The girl in this case, and the reason for Jim from IT's existence, was Molly Hooper.)

Jim was struggling with the coffee machine when he heard footsteps behind him. Jim from IT wouldn't hear footsteps behind him and so Jim let the footsteps come closer.

(Sensible, but work appropriate shoes worn by a relatively light person taking tentative steps, stopping several times mid-approach and then continuing with bursts of false confidence.)

Finally, Jim felt the double tap on his shoulders and so allowed himself to stop fiddling with the coffee maker, turning around to face the woman he knew had to be Molly Hooper. (She didn't put her picture online (which meant she had _some _common sense, whatever small amount it was) but her outfit matched her blog and who else would be at the hospital canteen this late at night?).

"Hi…um, are you Jim? From IT?" Molly asked, smiling friendly but also embarrassedly at the man she was hoping was the one who had contacted her online.

(In her green cardigan and brown slacks, he wished she had worn something nicer to work that night, possibly a skirt, but then quickly was glad that she didn't because she didn't want this man to like her for how she looked. Besides, he was dressed more casually than she was, in jeans and a longsleeved t-shirt.)

"Yes, yes I am." Jim confirmed, instantly grabbing the hand that had tapped him and shaking it, "Nice to meet you, Molly!...you are Molly, right? Molly Hooper?"

"Yes." Molly nodded, "Nice to meet you, too."

"You're more…normal than I expected, by the way. I mean that in a good way. It's just that you hear so many stories about…well, creeps from the internet stalking, raping and even killing women! I almost didn't want to come, but then I told myself that if I ever want any rewards in life, I've got to take risks. And so now I'm here."

"You're cute when you ramble." Jim commented, "I've always liked people who ramble. It's almost like you're listening to their thoughts. You learn a lot about people from what they say when they ramble. For example, you're normally a cautious person, you have been your whole life, but something changed recently. For some reason, you've decided to be different. I don't know what the reason, though, of course." Jim chuckled because he did know the reason.

Molly laughed, too, politely because she did not know why Jim was laughing and then took a breath of resolve.

"His name is Sherlock Holmes." she declared, "He's a consulting detective. The only one in the world. Have you heard of him?"

* * *

><p>(December, 2010—February, 2011)<p>

Jim Moriarty had amassed a vast Criminal Network. (Not all by himself, he had help (a certain gentleman named Lord Moran, for one.))

All was well…

…_too_ well.

Jim was _too_ good at being bad.

There were never any police knocking at (or down) his door, never any rival gangs or vengeful idiots attempting to assassinate him, the authorities didn't know who he was (or that he even _existed)._

This was perfectly acceptable to the network (individual trees in a forest so dark that they could not see each other). They were getting rich (and so was Jim, too, but he didn't care about money). They didn't want police knocking at (or down) _their_ doors, rival gangs or vengeful idiots attempting to assassinate _them_—although the authorities often_ did_ know who they were (and that they existed).

But Jim was bored.

He wanted the_ excitement_ of being chased, the_ challenge_ of hunted, and the appreciation of an equal. He wanted someone to notice his work—to notice _him._ And not just any old someone, either, he wanted someone _worthy. _

And that someone was Sherlock Holmes.

Jim noticed Sherlock for the first time after Sherlock and John caught and killed the cabbie he had paid to murder people. (The desperate, dying cabbie had tried to murder and rob Jim at first, wanting money to leave to his children, but Jim offered him a better solution.)

Jim noticed Sherlock the second time when Sherlock and John defeated the Black Lotus Tong. Antiques wasn't their only business, they also sold heroin. (Jim wasn't actually connected to them personally, that was Lord Moran who used his job as Minister of International Development to travel all over the world helping the poor third world people—and getting rich off of the corruption and crime in their countries that kept them poor.)

Neither Jim nor Lord Moran had General Shan shot, though. That was Mycroft. He didn't let anyone threaten his little brother. He had Anthea hack into Shan's computer, finding that she was communicating with Lord Moran who brought her gang into the country, and alerting Sherlock to the fact that he was working with the underground Chinese gangs and North Koreans.

(Jim and Lord Moran didn't know that though and assumed that General Shan had been shot by a rival gang or a vengeful idiot (who wasn't much of an idiot as he had been successful in his endeavor of assassination.))

Finally, Jim noticed Sherlock the third time after mentioning him to his 'mentor' (if one could call really him that, Jim rarely took guidance) Lord Moran, who then revealed to Jim that Sherlock had gone to the police with questions about Carl Powers's death all those years ago…

And that was when Jim knew had found his 'worthy opponent'.

* * *

><p>(March, 2011)<p>

As the earlybirds were just waking up, Molly and Jim were trying not to fall asleep after working hard on the nightshift. They lay in Molly's bed after skipping out early.

Molly had played by the rules her entire life, but then she had met Sherlock Holmes. He broke almost every rule and was still..._astounding. _No, not 'still astounding'. That was _why_ he was astounding.

Sherlock's genius saw societal norms, rules, and peer pressure for how foolish and limiting they were. They were random, essentially. Most traditions had no significance or necessity; they were just things that people did because other people did them.

Molly had always known this, too, but she like (most of) the rest of the world was _afraid. _Afraid to do what others did not. But when she saw Sherlock swimming in the waters of nonconformity, Molly decided they were safe and dipped her toe in.

First, it was stolen body parts Sherlock requested for his experiments. (The dead people weren't using them anymore, anyway, and their families would never know... )

Second, it was asking Sherlock Holmes out. Sure, she had a crush on him from the moment she saw him and heard his deductions, but she had learned as early as primary school that girls didn't ask boys out—especially men who were far out of their league. It was desperate, pathetic, _weird._

And girls also didn't have one night stands with fake night-shifters they just met, either—at least_ 'nice'_ girls, '_good'_ girls, '_respectable'_ didn't.

But Molly wasn't a nice, good, respectable girl anymore.

And no, she wasn't a 'bad girl' now, either.

She was a grown a woman with an education, a career and a right to sex life that was her business.

(_She wasn't going to feel guilty this time, she wasn't going to feel like a whore, she wasn't going to feel dirty_; she promised herself these things again and again in her head and she promised herself that soon she wouldn't have to promise and convince herself of these things, too. _Sherlock_ wouldn't (not that he had casual sex (Molly had no clue if he did or not) but he did do other things society might frown upon)).

Molly liked Jim. They had fun tonight (early morning), why did it have to mean anything? So what if they had just met? They had both consented, both enjoyed it and they had used protection. If they continued seeing each other, good. And if not, _still_ good.

It didn't have an effect on either of their morality (not that Jim's was in anyway being debated as a man in society or as himself in Molly's internal monologue).

"You there, Molly?"

Molly blinked. The room was dim but not dark (the lamp on the nightstand was lit, the overhead lights were off). She had been staring into space when she was supposed to have been staring at Jim. He was waving a hand in front of her eyes.

"Sorry." Molly apologized, shaking her head quickly, "I was just thinking…"

"About him?" Jim guessed, lowering his hand. Then tentatively, gently, he used it to tuck a strand of Molly's brown hair behind her ear. (He had had his hands all over her, just minutes earlier, but somehow this was more intimate.)

Molly looked down, bashfully, and smiled slightly. The appropriate response to a tender touch from a sweet man. She knew how to do these things, by now, there had been moments like these before; the moments that (most) women longed for since girlhood.

Sherlock Holmes would never—_could never_—be like this. Yet, Molly still longed for him, too (and (most) women longed for a man like him). A dissonance? Maybe. Or just a fact. Molly wanted Sherlock for his intelligence and his skill using it (and perhaps, his aloofness, too, she admitted), the things that made him _powerful._ But if Molly wanted caresses and kindness, if Molly wanted affection (love?), she would have to get them from someone else.

And so there was Jim.

(How long he would last as the 'someone else', she didn't yet know.)

"No," Molly sighed, "Not really…"

They were lying next to each other, their sides propped up on the white pillows so that they were facing each other. The sheets and blankets only covered the pair's lowerbodies. Molly had been tricked out of her bra unfairly, as Jim Moriarty had decided that Jim from IT was too shy to take off his undershirt.

Jim hadn't scoffed at Molly's small breasts and skinny and not so curvy body (which she was educated enough to know how to maintain in a healthy manner), in fact telling her he preferred 'girls like her'.

(Molly couldn't decide if she liked this about Jim, or not, because on one hand it meant he was attracted to her, but on the other hand it meant he probably bought into a destructive beauty standard that had left too many emaciated teenage girls dead on her morgue table.)

"Not _really?"_ Jim repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"Not in _that way_, I mean." Molly explained.

"Well, then, I hope you weren't thinking of him 'that way' when we were…you know." Jim chuckled.

"Don't worry." Molly smiled, also chuckling, "I wasn't. I'm not _that _obsessed."

"Liar." Jim accused, jokingly, "You wouldn't shut up about him and how brilliant he is until I kissed you."

"You're the one bringing him up now." Molly returned, "In bed. You sure you're not obsessed with him to, maybe?"

"Maybe." Jim grinned, in mock embarrassment, down at the sheet beneath them and at his hand which had eased like water drops down Molly's long hair, onto her shoulder, along her arm until it held her hand, "Or maybe, I'm just jealous of how much you love him."

"I don't_ love_ him." Molly corrected, "I just _like_ him a bit, that's all. And I like _you,_ too Jim." Now she was the one looking down at the blankets, again. Jim's hand was over her hand, enveloping it (but not the way that Sherlock's larger hand would). Hers was only clutching the sheet, idly.

The linens were purple, not pink (which is what Jim guessed they would be)—probably because studies stated that purple is the color that most promotes sleep (and because reminded Molly of Sherlock's infamous tight 'purple shirt of sex' as she had secretly taken to calling it).

Molly's mattress was a double, slightly smaller than a queen size, so large enough to fit two people (though not necessarily comfortably). It was meant for visitors, not live-ins. Jim couldn't decide whether that was lonely or liberating for Molly Hooper, who was harder to read than her blog.

"But who do you like _more?"_ Jim inquired, slyly. They both knew the answer (Sherlock) but he wanted to know whether she'd be honest or polite.

"Hard question." Molly answered, cheekily, then seriously, "I mean, I've known Sherlock for a while, now. I've just met you tonight. But you're here, and Sherlock isn't. So…"

She chose both.

(Clever girl—_no._ Tactful _woman.)_

"So, you like him more but I'm the one who pays attention to you." Jim translated, "You'll take what you can get, it seems. Beggars can't be choosers, after all."

"I'm not a _beggar!"_ Molly exclaimed, offendedly. She snatched her hand away from Jim's, sharply. Her words had come out more harshly and less jokingly as she had hoped they would. She always ended up speaking her mind, even when she didn't want to.

"I was only kidding." Jim back tracked, he hadn't expected an outburst from someone like Molly (first the sex, and now this, she was a surprising person) "Sorry! I'm sure you have loads of handsome suitors sending you flowers and—" Okay, maybe that was too sarcastic; Jim bit his tongue to prevent himself from continuing.

"I don't, but that doesn't make me 'beggar'." Molly asserted, matter-of-factly, "I'm perfectly happy alone."

Did she mean it? Jim couldn't tell. _Maybe it was why she liked Sherlock, because she knew she could never have him and so could have an excuse to always be alone…_

"That doesn't mean you have to be alone." Jim responded, to save the situation, "That doesn't mean you can't be happy with someone."

He leaned in for the kiss. The first time they had kissed, after she had told him about Sherlock for over thirty minutes, he had just moved forwards and pressed his lips to hers. This time, his lips waited centimeters from her lips, waiting for hers to move the final small distance to connect them.

She did.

Just like anyone would, just like she was supposed to do. Perhaps she wasn't so surprising after all.

And so they kissed. It felt longer than it actually lasted, was warm and wet, and even had a modest amount of tongue. It was practiced and controlled, there had been many other kisses like this one for the both of them (with other people). They were both playing their parts perfectly, but they were just _playing._

This wasn't real.

It disappointed Jim because he liked being the only one 'faking it'.

It excited Jim because he was tired of being the only one 'faking it'.

…Of course, although it was obvious Molly didn't really have any deep feelings for or future hopes for a relationship with Jim (how could she? they had just met) she was using him in a much different way than Jim was using her. And so Jim enjoyed the best of both manipulation worlds because of that.

"You know, we never did have that coffee." Jim reminded, offhandedly. He sat up, turning away from Molly to glance around her bedroom.

It was small, but so was the rest of the flat. There were curtains over the one window (thick so nobody could peep into the bedroom from the building across the street), soft carpeting over the floor (and pillows and tangled clothing moved out of the way over the soft carpeting), and bedside tables on both sides of the bed (although only one of them was regularly used).

"That's because_ you_ never figured out how to use the coffee maker." Molly returned, smiling. She sat up, too, watching Jim eye her room.

She was embarrassed about the mess (dirty clothes overflowing the hamper by the wardrobe—which was filled with old stuff she no longer used but hadn't thrown out or given away instead of clothing—her clean clothes unfolded in the half open drawers of the dresser) but hoped Jim wouldn't notice because he was a guy and all the online articles said guys didn't care about that sort of thing.

"Even so, I'm getting really sleepy now. I've been up for twenty hours or so." Jim sighed, flopping back down onto the mattress with a thump, arms behind his head and eyes closed, "So I either need a nap or some coffee. And since I can't make seem to work those ridiculous machines, I guess you're going to have to make the coffee. Or else I'll be commandeering your bed—without _you_ in it—for a few hours." He yawned.

"_Or,_ I could just, you know, kick you out to find your own coffee and bed." Molly asserted, boldly, then quickly shutting her mouth and opening it again to say, "I'm joking. Sorry." She shook her head, embarrassedly, "Guess I'm sleepy too. Saying things like that." She yawned, too.

Jim snorted, eyes still closed, "I thought it was funny. Your blog and your sweaters make you seem so innocent and sweet. So it's nice to see some spite from you, every once in a while, just for some variety."

"You only met me ago and read a blog I've made about five entries in." Molly stated, smiling but serious, "You don't know me."

"You're right." Jim admitted, opening his eyes and gazing over at her, "There's no way I could figure out everything about you from such a small amount of time and information. I keep forgetting I'm not Sherlock Holmes."

Molly giggled. "I thought we weren't talking about him anymore," She said, then adding, "…Besides, the ugly sweaters and internet kittens are ironic."

Now Jim sat back up.

"_Ironic?"_ he repeated, taken aback and then laughing, "Come on, Molly! Nobody likes hipsters—not even _hipsters_ like hipsters."

Molly rolled her eyes.

"I like hipsters." She declared, folding her arms over her chest in a location that particularly annoyed Jim, "They wear sexy scarves like Sherlock Holmes."

"I thought we weren't talking about him anymore." Jim echoed. He reached to pull one of Molly's arms out of the way of a more preferable sight and pull her down towards him in one motion. He lay back to accommodate the movement, keeping it smooth.

"We're not." Molly agreed, gliding down as guided to rest on the fabric of his t-shirt, which she snuck her free hand under (she had to find out whether it was hair or a belly—or both—that he was embarrassed about…it was neither, the hair felt trimmed and the stomach felt normal (not a sixpack but not a beergut, either) _so what was he hiding…?). _

"Good." Jim sighed, closing his eyes, pretending to fall asleep, "…but if I'm not having any coffee, I really am going to need some sleep. I have nightshift again tonight."

"Really?" Molly asked, closing her eyes too, trying to fall asleep, "Because I've worked at Bart's for three years now and hasn't ever been an IT nightshift…"

Jim opened his eyes.

* * *

><p>(March—April, 2011)<p>

Obsession is like a snowball. It starts small, but as it rolls down the mountain it grows into an avalanche.

That was how Jim Moriarty's obsession with Sherlock Holmes began. Like a snowball. It wasn't the serial suicides or the Black Lotus Tong—no, they were just the snow.

It was Carl Powers that was the snowball. A long dead memory for both Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, resurrected by Lord Moran in Jim's conscious (and soon to be revived in Sherlock's as well).

And Jim Moriarty, he was the avalanche.

In a first, Jim called upon his contacts from Estonia, Albania, Czech Republic, and Colombia…all at the same time. (He couldn't trust anyone in any of the London gangs because Sherlock knew too many people (many of them unsavory) in London.)

Jim Moriarty (and all of the names he went by in different countries with different gangs) had never done this before, having taken care that the different parts of his Criminal Network sum didn't know about each other so that they could never become a whole that was more powerful than the force adding them together (Jim Moriarty).

Jim decided to risk that possibility, just this once, because he had finally found his archnemesis and so he had to make their battle _special._ He wanted to show off to Sherlock the extent of the Criminal Network he had created. Sherlock Holmes had solved cases all over the world. Jim Moriarty had to prove he had committed crimes all over the world; it was the only way to gain Sherlock's respect.

Jim knew a forger who made perfect 'fake' visas. (They weren't_ really_ fake and were manufactured at the same place the official ones. The forger worked out of a British consulate.) Jim had them shipped to the gunmen he picked.

Thirty gunmen…and one _gunwoman_.

She was English, (or so she claimed), named Mary Morstan (or so she claimed). She worked as a nurse at a local hospital but came to Jim begging for a job since she was just so bored. Jim didn't trust her at first, but the visa forger had sent her as a condition for the fake visas he made and so Jim had to take her. For now.

The gunmen arrived and were split up into four groups, each group not knowing what the other groups were doing….

-The Albanian group captured the crying woman in the car, strapped bombs to her.

-The Colombian group captured the crying man on the street, strapped bombs to him.

-The Estonian group captured the blind old woman and blew her up (along with her entire apartment building) for describing Jim (not very well, and in a way that could never identify him)—Another insurance scam, the old woman wanted to die because she was blind and immobile, and wanted her children to have their inheritance. She was told not to describe the voice on the earpiece or else she would die, and she described it anyway.

-The Czech group captured the little boy, tried to strap bombs to him but couldn't actually bring themselves to do and so just asked him nicely to count down, please. (He was scared enough as it was, being kidnapped and all.)

…but when Sherlock Holmes elected to meet Jim Moriarty at the pool "where little Carl died" Jim couldn't resist further showing off by bringing all the groups of gunmen from all the different countries—all the pieces of a puzzle that was never meant to be put together into a decipherable picture—and so they all met. _Hopefully, they'd never team up and turn against Jim…_

Meanwhile, _not_ hired by Jim, was Czech hitman Oscar Dzundza (codename The Golem) also travelled to London to kill two people who knew too much, a rookie mistake Jim never would have made knowing that the money that could've been made from the so-called 'Lost Vermeer' was more than enough to pay them off and still make a substantial profit, which was the reason Jim revealed Wenceslas's crime to Sherlock.

The reason he revealed Ian Monkford and Janus Cars was because Mr. Ewart had helped Monkford without Jim's permission (Mr. Ewart's drivers had been delivering drugs for a Colombian gang in his hired cars, when Jim hired a car and discovered this.. he then met up with Mr. Ewart and told him what else he could do with the cars—and his approval).

Now, why Jim revealed Kenny Prince and Raul DeSantos was a little more whimsical. It was because he was pretending to date Molly at the time and she said she was sad that Connie had unexpectedly died since she liked watching the show.

* * *

><p>(March, 2011)<p>

They were on their second 'date', sitting in her apartment. The sitting room had a couch in front of the television (the old, small and fat kind with the protruding back) ontop of a small shelf that also contained the DVD player, various DVDs, and an assortment of outdated wiring. The room blended with the dining room that blended with the kitchenette; only the bedroom and the toilet were separate.

Molly and Jim had watched Glee to laugh at how terrible it was, but now they were watching the news. Connie Prince, the talk show host, had died. Apparently via tetanus contracted in the vegetable garden she was always lauding on TV.

Molly loved the show for all the ridiculous people that came on it, telling their crazy stories and arguing with each other. It was supposed to be the UK's Oprah, but it was really just another Springer or Jeremy Kyle. (She did take the make-up tips, seriously, though, but that was because she didn't often wear makeup and it was the gay brother who gave the makeup tips and every gay man was an automatic expert on fashion, hair and makeup.)

"It's not very likely Connie got tetanus from her garden and died." Molly commented, furrowing her eyebrows, pursing her lips and folding her arms in suspicion at the handsome newscaster on the television, "She wouldn't have died from just a little cut infection, before she even reached the hospital, as she did just now. That speed could only occur from ingesting the botulinum or having it injected into the bloodstream, somehow. More directly than a small, shallow cut from contaminated soil."

"It seems we have ourselves a mystery." Jim declared, matter-of-factly. His arm was idling along the back of the couch, a few inches above Molly's shoulder, "I wonder if Sherlock Holmes could solve it."

"He could." Molly assured, nodding. Her eyes were still trained on the grainy TV screen.

Jim mentally scolded himself because Raul DeSantos shouldn't have even been able to find him—let alone know about him—but, according to Molly, a woman named Sofie Wenceslas had been on the Connie Prince show to promote her gallery's newest (or oldest) piece opening soon, and must have told Raul and Kenny about the mysterious man she had met on the internet, whom she agreed to split the money earned from the forged painting with in exchange for him using his contacts to get the painting authenticated as real. Now the money was going to be split two ways. (The authenticators wanted a cut as bribes, too, but they got threats to their families instead.)

When Wenceslas had been to Argentina, Jim didn't know. It could have been years ago, or it could have been a week ago. It mostly didn't matter. Jim _also_ didn't know how she had met this 'little old man in Argentina' who could paint professional landscapes and yet had never found a career doing so, or else he wouldn't have painted forgeries (as a hobby, not for a living, he was already retired). (How the old man had access to Old Masters' of Europe to copy their style from was the real question, though, of course. …_Or was it?_ Jim really did wonder how old that man was and how long Wenceslas had had the painting.)

Sofie Wenceslas was around Lord Moran's age and they had known each other from before Moran was Minister of International Development, even before he was an MP, when he was an employee of the International Monetary Fund doing research in the newly formed Czech Republic. He had gotten promoted, moved back to London. She had followed him…only to find him married. He didn't mind having a mistress but Wenceslas didn't want to be one. But she did stay in London, for some reason, working at a gallery that she eventually bought. Lord Moran had referred her to Jim Moriarty (not by name, of course), when she had mentioned the forged painting to him one night.

…That all being explained, Jim never should have been able to help Raul with Connie's murder, except for Wenceslas breaking her promise never to tell anyone about him (of course if everyone kept this promise, he would never get any business and so he lived for people lying and breaking their promises).

And now Molly was sad because Connie was dead.

Jim Moriarty didn't really care about that, but Jim from IT did and so Jim Moriarty chose to take advantage of that and put Sherlock Holmes on the case—giving Molly justice from the eager to please Jim from IT, and Jim Moriarty another way to test Sherlock.

"I bet_ you_ could." Jim asserted, "You are a pathologist, after all."

Molly was still facing the television, but Jim could see the small smile peaking up her cheek.

"Well, if I could get a look at the body I could try my best, I suppose..." Molly stated, then adding with more resolve and another nod, "Yes. I think I could."

"So who do you think killed her, then?" Jim inquired, trying to sound nonchalant.

"_Killed her?_" Molly repeated, taken aback and turning to Jim, "We don't know if it was a murder yet, do we?...But if it was, I would guess the brother.

"I thought they did the show together." Jim recalled.

"Yes, they did and they were best friends." Molly recounted, "…until Connie hired Raul DeSantos. He was a plastic surgeon in his home country, but here his qualifications aren't accepted and so he ended up just dermatological advice on the show—and also, doing Connie's botox, most likely. Although she always denied getting it on TV. Did you know she claims to still be thirty two? She's obviously in her late fifties…"

"You women are so critical of each other." Jim chided, facetiously, "Always in competition."

"Connie wasn't in competition with other women." Molly corrected, "She was in competition with another man. Her brother. Connie had a bit of a crush on Raul, I think if you look at how she fawned over him on the show. He's the boytoy every rich old woman wants…But Raul left Honduras because he's gay and gays are routinely attacked there. So Raul ended up with Kenny, based on the two's bod language whenever they were on stage together. And so Connie must have been jealous."

"If _Connie_ was the one who was jealous, why was _she_ the one to get murdered?" Jim questioned, gesturing at the TV screen in which the same clip of the Connie Prince Show was being repeated on the news channel again as it had been every thirty minutes or so.

"…I don't know." Molly admitted, shrugging, "I'm not Sherlock." She smiled.

Molly seemed to smile whenever Sherlock was mentioned. Jim understood this, having similar feelings about Sherlock as she did, but he didn't like it.

"Well, how can you be so sure Raul and Kenny are gay?" Jim asked.

"It's well speculated on the fansites," Molly answered, "Besides, I have excellent gaydar."

Jim raised an eyebrow.

"_Really…?"_ he said.

* * *

><p>(March, 2012)<p>

"Alright, let him go…"

Jim Moriarty was suddenly awoken by the voice of Mycroft Holmes from a deeper sleep than he normally allowed himself to have. He had fallen asleep sitting up this time, by accident, in the cold metal chair. He hadn't heard the footsteps of the men approach, or seen the crack of light from the open doorway. He had been in this dungeon too long. Weeks, most likely. He was too…_comfortable._

Jim didn't _like_ to be comfortable. He had become accustomed to the routine, first being beaten, and then trading information about his Criminal Network for information about Sherlock Holmes with Mycroft.

But there was something _new_ this time.

A shadow masking the crack of light from the doorway. The silhouette of a tall man wearing a suit.

The tall man was _not_ Mycroft Holmes.

(But Jim knew that from inside the observation room that shared the mirror-window with the concrete cell Mycroft Holmes was still watching.)

Jim opened his eyes, stood up from the chair, and turned around. He walked forwards and past the tall man, as if he was not there.

But he had noticed him. The tall man was obviously not an employee of Mycroft Holmes (too old, Mycroft liked to surround himself with beautiful, fit young people (compensating for something? Jim wondered)), although he did have the same cold and calculating look in his eye as all of the employees and especially Mr. Holmes, himself. _Who was he…?_

Jim continued out of the cell, blind as he had been brought into it, since being blindfolded before he didn't know where he was or how to get out. And so he turned and opened the closest door to him, the wooden door to the observation room, and went inside. There, he found Mycroft Holmes and the pretty girl from earlier who called herself 'Anthea'.

He stood before them in his undershirt and underpants.

"I do hope your people are going to take me to my five star hotel safehouse as a protected witness now." Jim began, "Because we had a deal, Mr. Holmes."

"Yes, we did." Mycroft affirmed, matter-of-factly, "Information for information. I gave you the information you wanted, you gave me the information I wanted. Now our business has concluded and it's time for you to go." He gestured towards the door.

"They're trying to kill me out there, you know that." Jim reminded, "And it's what you want, isn't it? Now that you have what you want, you can't possibly allow me to live with what you've told me. But why not just have me killed yourself, then?"

"Because someone wants you alive, Mr. Moriarty." Mycroft stated, "As well as free."

"And who is it who cares so deeply about me and my freedom?" Jim questioned.

To that, Mycroft only chuckled dismissively and shook his head.

"I'll show you to the exit." Anthea smiled, polite and contrived. She strode past Mycroft and Jim, out the door, not glancing behind her. She knew Jim would follow as instructed.

Jim took one last look at Mycroft, and did.

Back in the dimly lit hall of plaster walls, the tall man was gone. The door had also been closed (so then, the tall man had looked inside).

Anthea returned to the observation room once she had taken Jim outside and put him into a car.

"You've delivered him safely, I assume." Mycroft assumed.

"Safely?" Anthea smirked, "The people who want him dead will come to England to hunt him down. That, of course saves, us the trouble of having to locate his global Criminal Network."

Saving Mycroft from having to explain the obvious to the oblivious, Anthea was more than just a 'pretty girl'. Mycroft Holmes had chosen his personal assistant wisely.

"Yes." Mycroft confirmed, "But I doubt that is Mr. Banks's aim in buying Moriarty's life and freedom."

"Mr. Banks?" Anthea repeated, confusedly. She was _not_ the oblivious and this was_ not_ the obvious, "Who is Mr. Banks?"

"Who, indeed..." Mycroft responded, forebodingly.

Meanwhile, the tall man exited the secret prison of the British Government that no ordinary civilian should even know about, let alone, buy their way into and out of. He could thank Lady Smallwood for that…

…And Charles Augustus Magnussen.

* * *

><p>(March, 2011)<p>

Jim, in his green underwear of a "particular brand" (and of course, his standard outerwear for Jim from IT) leaned against the hallway wall of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital, right outside the laboratory he had just officially met Sherlock Holmes inside. (Oh yeah, and that John Watson dude, too.)

He couldn't help but laugh to himself when he heard the unexpected shout from an unexpected voice, covering his mouth with the hand not holding the cellphone that was waiting for Sherlock's call.

"_He's not gay! Why do you have to spoil—he's not!" _

Soon enough a flustered (furious) Molly Hooper was in the hallway with Jim. She almost stormed past him (tears pooling in her eyes but refusing to fall) not noticing him but she didn't and she did notice him, turning to him and glaring.

"Jim!" she hissed, quietly because she didn't want Sherlock (and whatever his friend's name was) to overhear the impending awkward conversation.

"You ever shout at Sherlock like that before?" Jim asked, in wry amusement, "That was quite the tantrum. He must have really made you mad. I thought you wanted to be all sweet and doting for him, no matter how much he brushes you off. Girls always go for the jerks."

"You must be right because _you're_ the jerk!" Molly snapped, "Gay?! You weren't gay last night!"

"Molly, you know me, he's just lying to break us up!" Jim attempted, incredulously, "You can't honestly believe—"

"You left him your number!" Molly declared, voice cracking, "Why would you have even —I should have—I just—"

"You don't understand—" Jim started.

"Then explain!" Molly demanded.

"Not here." Jim whispered, "I'll tell you everything tonight at The Fox. I'll pick you up—"

"I'm not going_ anywhere_ with you!" Molly cried, "If you're gay, that's fine! I don't care! And if you like Sherlock, that's fine too, I don't own him. But you have _no right_ to trick me like that! And _no,_ before you say it, we _can't _still be friends! Don't talk to me ever again!"

Jim blinked.

"Calm down." He said, "You're not even on your period. I saw. And tasted, too. You can always tell when a woman's about to be on the rag."

Molly didn't even respond to that.

She just turned and continued down the hall, hoping never to see Jim from IT again.

* * *

><p>(March, 2012)<p>

Inside he futuristic London headquarters of CAM, the multination media corporation named after its founder and director ('arrogance at its finest') Charles Augusts Magnussen, Jim has positioned himself with another stolen key (this time a key_card) _in front of the private elevator to the top floor of the skyscraper.

He swiped it, smiled, closed his eyes, and waited for the footsteps.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, then! That's chapter one. Hope you liked it and want me to write more! <strong>

**Some _unexpected_ things. Yes. I know. The whole fuck-on-the-first-date isn't the usual Molly (unless someone's writing a dark!Molly). I almost wasn't gonna do it but then I thought "what the hell?" (and so she thought the same thing).**

**There was a lot of exposition/explaining things in this chapter because it goes over series one stuff which has all been done many times before. I'm just trying to get it over with quickly in this chapter and the next. After that, it will be more new plot that takes place during the two years Sherlock was gone and also during and after series three. **

**I'm trying to make this different than The Mouse and the Spider, but once again we have our 'mysterious man in a suit' character, this time 'Mr. Banks' (no relation to the current movie) instead of Jim's secret brother. Oh well. That will be resolved more quickly this time. **

**As those of you who are also on Tumblr, you can probably see that some of the feminist stuff from Tumblr has inspired me. Because of that, this story will be more feminist, in a way, since I realize TMATS Molly was sometimes too passive. **

**That doesn't mean I'm going to make her out of character, though. At least not too much. **

**That being said, I think the slapping scene in His Last Vow was shameful and ridiculous. **

**Women hitting men isn't empowering to women. Or funny. Or in anyway more okay than a man hitting a woman. If a man had slapped a woman for using drugs, it would never have been portrayed or viewed in the same light as Molly slapping Sherlock for using drugs. And that's not the feminism I support. **

**As much as I appreciate Moffat's creation of Sherlock, and development of interesting male characters (and Mary's pretty good, too) and plot, I have the same complaints as many about his subtle sexism. He's a good writer for Sherlock and Jekyll, but a bit sexist. **

**Everyone has flaws though, and since one of my favorite characters (which Moffat partially wrote and now I write in fanfiction) is a psychopathic killer, I can't really get on the soapbox about feminism. I'll still never forgive Moffat for the plotholes in Doctor Who, though. **

**Anyway, enough of A/Ns I use as my public diary.**

**Again, I really hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my story and want more chapters! **

**If you do, please review and tell me what you think! **


	2. Whose Fleece Was White As Snow

**Chapter two! We've made it! **

**Sorry for the wait! **

**These chapters are pretty long, though, so at least it's kinds justifiable...**

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far! As you all have heard hundreds of times, it's the best motivation to write. At least for me. I'm superficial like that. **

**This chapter is officially dedicated to the wonderful JimxMolly on Tumblr who promoted this story heavily on the website. Thank you so much! Please check her out on Tumblr and on under the username 'Jim and Molly'.**

**And speaking of Tumblr, Wordpress isn't exactly Tumblr but I just found this Wordpress blog Reasoning Backwards. The post 'The Reichenbach Fall: Act 1 (part 6a)' is relevant to this story, putting into words concepts I never could yet hope to portray. Basically, what I mean by that is I thought of an idea and then saw the post and realized that they thought of it first. So yeah, check that blog out, too. **

**I really wish I was in high school again. Then I could probably do a chapter every other day. I am going to limit my hours at work so I have more time for this, though…**

**As you can see, we're having a children's song theme for the chapter titles. But the purpose for this title is that not only does Mary have a 'little lamb' (John) but so does Jim (Molly). **

**Enjoy! (Hopefully...)**

**:)**

* * *

><p>(April—June, 2012)<p>

Question: _"Ah, that's the problem, the final problem. Have you worked out what it is yet? What's the final problem? I did tell you… but did you listen?"_

Answer: _"Every person has their pressure point... Someone they want to protect from harm. Easy peasy."_

* * *

><p>(March, 2011)<p>

Jim took a deep breath.

He was standing in front of the door to Molly Hooper's flat.

The last time he seen her, a day or so ago, he had made some lewd comments and she had whisper-shouted at him to never speak to her again. But ever gracious and the bigger person, Molly had made a public apology to him on her blog and so Jim felt obligated to come pay her a visit.

…but why was he even still checking her blog, though? Why would someone like _her_ (ordinary, average intelligence) matter to someone like _him _(extraordinary, genius intelligence)?

_Why?_

Maybe it was because he wanted to sabotage the only other person who seemed as obsessed with Sherlock Holmes as he was (but then there were John Watson and Jacob Sowersby _(however, neither of them were really Jim's type…)). _Jim didn't want to share.

Or _maybe_ it was because he_ did. _Obsession loved community, after all, it made the obsessed feel less crazy and isolated. Less _different. _

Jim Moriarty was tired of his Criminal Network. They were all so boring; interested in money, mostly, and the power that came from it (or vice versa)._ Jim _was interested in _Sherlock. _Jim wanted to create a fanclub for Sherlock Holmes where everyone would bond over how smart, and cool, and handsome Sherlock was.

Or_ maybe_ it was because after all the buildup of using out-of-date and untraceable pagers, semtex bombs, hired gunmen, and unlucky kidnapped laypeople, all to impress Sherlock Holmes (and motivate him to become as obsessed with Jim was Jim was with him), the first confrontation between the two newly-sworn enemies was…a_ little underwhelming._

There was no climax to the rising action. Just a few threats tossed idly back and forth between 'friends', some fake bombs (yeah, like Jim was actually going to allow himself to be blown up) and a fake gun (yeah, like Sherlock was actually going to allow himself shot and/or blown up). And a conveniently-timed phone call, too. Jim would be meeting with the caller, Irene Adler, tomorrow.

And so, with his adrenaline and testosterone and blood still pumping from the excitement, maybe Jim just wanted to get laid and have some kind of resolution to the situation that was still jittering through his veins like six shots of espresso.

(Or maybe, just maybe, Jim was lonely.)

* * *

><p>(December, 1991—April, 2011)<p>

Mary Morstan was_ not_ stillborn.

(And Sherlock Holmes was _not_ always right.)

Mary Morstan was born live and lived a happy, healthy and normal life…

…until the early morning after her sixteenth birthday party when she and her friends had a bit (way) too much to drink and afterwards drove a car down the wrong side of the road. The crashed vehicles, and their collateral damage, were recovered several hours later. All but one of the passengers inside both cars in the head-on collision were dead.

Including Mary Morstan.

Her parents kept all her documents; birth certificate, National Insurance number (painfully and ironically sent to her home address after she had died), death certificate. Twenty years later, they had already grieved and moved on. By that time, they didn't mind selling these documents to the buyer who asked over the internet (besides, they needed the money).

The buyer, a consulate employee, edited them and sold them to the_ new _Mary Morstan; a blonde ex-CIA agent born in the same year as the girl she had bought her English identity from. The ex-CIA agent had been referred to the consulate employee by a mutual friend.

Before her name was Mary Morstan, the ex-CIA agent—who was still a CIA agent at the time—had been taking freelance jobs behind the CIA's back, earning enough extra money that she could escape from the CIA and retire in hiding to a normal life. She _thought_ she was tired of spying and murdering for a living.

One of these freelance jobs was for a New Jersey lawyer who wanted his girlfriend followed because he suspected her of cheating. The CIA agent followed her and discovered the mobster was indeed correct and informed him of this fact. Unsurprisingly he wanted the now_ ex_-girlfriend killed and the CIA agent to do it.

The ex-girlfriend's name was Irene Adler.

The CIA agent snuck into her five-star hotelroom to kill her, but instead the two had a nice chat over a glass of wine about how hard it was being a "woman in a man's world" during which Irene offered the CIA agent "a way out" of "the life" ("the life" meaning the CIA and the killing, and "a way out" meaning safe passage to England and a new identity there).

The trade for safe passage was not getting killed. The trade for a new identity was top-secret CIA intelligence (which would later result in three male CIA agents breaking into Irene Adler's London address to get it back).

Once in England, he ex-CIA agent, now named Mary Morstan, had _tried_ to retire in hiding to a normal life. She had gotten a normal day job as nurse with forged certification, she had gotten a normal flat in a suburban building, she had gotten a normal boyfriend who worked in IT (no, his name was _not _Jim, it was David and he actually did have a job in IT for the corporate headquarters of a hotel chain), and she had realized that 'normal' was a synonym for _boring._

The ideal of a house and husband and a white picket fence that all little girls (even those who grew up to be CIA agents and freelance killers) envisioned in their future was not as perfect as Mary had imagined.

…Still, for some reason _(nostalgia (sentiment))_, she wanted it and so she compromised with herself. She would be a nurse on weekdays and a gun for hire one weekend every month (she had to spend the other weekends with her boyfriend Dave, who believed she was on a business trip (what kind of nurse went on regular business trips?) the one weekend he didn't see her).

And so now Mary Morstan sat in the stands above a London swimming pool, along with thirty men from various foreign countries (Czech Republic, Colombia, Albania, Estonia). All of them had guns equipped with laser pointers (not only for show to scare those they were pointing at, but to make sure the men had correct aim because most of them had never shot a long range weapon before).

The men from various foreign countries were surprised to meet other men from other various foreign countries (as well as the one woman they believed was from the country they were currently in), as the bosses who had sent them had only met the man who had hired them, James Moriarty (though Mary doubted that was his real name), over the internet and were not aware that he was working with other criminal gangs.

Still, they had no time to make acquaintance with each other yet as Moriarty had instructed them not to "make a peep" while he spoke to the men, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, they were instructed to aim their weapons at (but not shoot) at his signals (Watson opening the green coat, a snap of the fingers).

The tall, rectangular room was dark and dead silent.

Downstairs, in the men's lockerroom John Watson would be waking up just about now. Mary, being a woman, had had to wait outside in the tiled hall when the two gunmen who had kidnapped the army doctor and knocked him out dragged his unconscious body in there, where James Moriarty was waiting.

Mary was fiddling with her new sniper rifle, compliments of Moriarty (who was somehow getting large quantities of British Military weapons), turning the red laser on and off, when Moriarty stormed out of the lockerroom, suddenly and angrily.

"You call this a coat?!" he exclaimed, waving around a green winter jacket with brown fakefur trim on its hood, "It's a turtle shell with fur!" He tossed it onto the floor.

The lockerroom door slammed behind him so hard it swung right back open, allowing one of the other gunmen to run out after him.

"But, sir, you did not say which one you want!" the bald and bearded gunman attempted in what sounded to Mary like a Mediterranean accent, "You just said get a coat. It was the only one large enough to fit the bombs!"

"I take fashion very seriously." Moriarty chided, wagging a finger at the gunman, then adding, matter-of-factly, "I'll have to have you killed for this, you know."

The gunman froze. His eyes were so wide they were as round as the top of his head.

Moriarty managed to keep a poker face for fifteen seconds. It then erupted into snickering, beneath the fist covering his smile.

The gunman was still motionless and tense, unsure of what the laughter from a mentally unstable criminal meant.

"He's joking." Mary finally called over, feeling sorry for the poor hired gun. Humor had difficulty breaking the language barrier, sometimes.

The gunman breathed out a held breath, shoulders deflating in relief. He then, quickly picked up the jacket from the ground and retreated back into the lockerroom.

"You're no fun." Moriarty complained to Mary, turning to her after watching the gunman go, "That's _another_ offense worth having someone killed for..."

"Try it." Mary invited, gesturing to her sniper rifle, "I haven't had 'fun' in a long time. It's why I'm working for you tonight. But I've betrayed people who've hired me before."

Moriarty smiled at that, but didn't say anything. He too returned to the men's lockerroom.

And Mary had stayed outside until the thirty gunmen filed out of the room, with their matching guns, indicating for her to follow them. She did and so they went up the stairs to the second—no _first,_ it was called 'first' in the UK—floor to sit on the benches of the balcony overlooking the pool. (John Watson and James Moriarty were left behind.)

Finally there was a sound. The sound of a door opening.

A tall, skinny brown-haired man entered the room by the shallow end of the pool and directly under where Mary and the gunmen sat.

Sherlock Holmes.

Moriarty knew he would enter through this door and so had had them sit there so that Holmes would not be able to see them. He had turned off all but the emergency lights, too, to further obscure them.

Holmes turned around and looked right up at them. Mary couldn't discern from his face whether he saw them or not, or if he just knew they were there. Either way, he turned back around as if he had seen nothing and then held up his arm to brandish _something _(Mary couldn't tell what it was, it was too dark and it was too small).

"Brought you a little 'getting to know you' present." Sherlock Holmes declared, loudly enough that everyone in the room could hear him, knowing that Moriarty was somewhere and would be listening. He continued to glance around the room, hoping to locate his enemy, while continuing to speak, "That's what it's all been for, isn't it? All your little puzzles. Making me dance. All to distract me from _this."_

Then there was another sound. The sound of another door opening.

John Watson, in the green jacket with the brown fakefur trim from earlier, walked into the room.

Mary squinted to get a better look at the man. His hair was dirty-blond, not graying and all there, and he had just enough wrinkles on his face to make him look mature and experienced in life while still charming and boyish.

She blushed. Even though hired killers weren't supposed to think their targets were cute, she did.

But that wouldn't interfere with her doing her job, of course.

Watson repeated whatever Moriarty was whispering in his ear via the earpiece forced on him along with the jacket and the bombs, leading Holmes to believe Watson was Moriarty…until Watson was instructed to open his jacket and reveal the bombs.

Opening his jacket was the first signal, and so the gunman who had been instructed to turned on his gun's laser and aimed it at the doctor.

At that point, Moriarty decided to make his dramatic entry.

Mary didn't really pay close attention to his playful and threatening conversation with Holmes, instead gazing at the poor, adorable John Watson who was just standing there putting up with this. Moriarty tossed whatever tiny thing Sherlock had been holding earlier into the pool.

Suddenly, John Watson grabbed Moriarty from behind and shouted for Sherlock Holmes to "run!", and warning James Moriarty that if his sniper shot him they would "both go up".

Mary couldn't help but blush again.

John (yes, he was 'John' now, to her) was so brave, so self-sacrificing. A true hero and a good man.

Mary, despite being a bad woman, had always loved a good man.

This_ would_ interfere with her doing her job.

The gunman who had been pointing his gun (and laser) at John turned his gun (and laser) on Holmes, briefly, forcing John to release Moriarty who brushed his suit off annoyedly, declaring "Westwood".

(That comment, along with the green jacket incident earlier, made Mary suspect that Moriarty hadn't just been _"playing_" gay as he had asserted a few minutes ago.)

Moriarty and Holmes threatened each other some more both trying to get the 'last word' in as Moriarty walked away and Holmes let him go, neither of them acting on their cold and menacing bravado of "I'll burn the heart out of you." and "What if I was to shoot you now?", respectively.

Mary rolled her eyes at this. When she set her mind to killing someone, she didn't _threaten_ it—she _did_ it; swiftly and without the small talk.

She stood up from the bleachers, rifle in hand, and headed towards the stairs. Some of the gunmen looked at her oddly for doing so, while others just assumed it was Moriarty's orders.

Back down on the ground floor, Mary found Moriarty in the dim, tiled hallway leaning against the wall next to the men's lockerroom door and checking his mobilephone.

He looked up when he heard her approach.

"_What?"_ he asked, half confusedly and half _defensively_, of all things, as if he was embarrassed.

"Why are you just standing here?" Mary questioned, "Sherlock Holmes could follow you here and you don't have your gunmen here to protect you from him."

"Yes I do." Moriarty countered, shaking his head, then correcting himself with "Well, you're not a _man, _per say, but you _do_ have a gun, so…"

"Did you really just reveal four crimes you've helped commit, kidnap five people, and blow up one building, all to get Sherlock Holmes' attention….just so you could tell him to 'back off'?" Mary described James Moriarty's actions with logic, "You didn't even kill him. _What was the point of all this?"_

Moriarty didn't seem to have an answer to that question. Perhaps that was why he seemed a little embarrassed.

He shrugged.

"Somethings are beyond the understanding of…_lesser minds_, such as yours." He tried, ambiguously, "I didn't hire you to question me. I hired you to point a gun and shoot. _Simple. _Don't get your little brain _confused_ with the complexities of _my_ ingenious plot."

Mary raised an eyebrow.

Moriarty grinned, snorting.

"_Of course_ I'm going to kill him!" he laughed, "I'm going to kill them both. I just wanted to make them _think_ that I was going to let them go. Mess with their heads, a bit, you know... Let them believe that they're safe for a few moments before pulling the rug out from under them and watching them fall with those_ beautiful_ looks of shock on their faces…"

Mary took a breath.

"Alright." She accepted (or at least _pretended_ to—there was _no way _she going to allow _her_ John to get killed).

"Then back up the stairs you go now and be ready to shoot." Moriarty ordered, "Sherlock'll shoot the bomb first. It's not real, so we won't have to worry about getting out clothes singed. But once Sherlock realizes that, he'll just shoot me. So do try to kill him before he does that. _Okay?"_

Mary nodded.

She returned to the stairs, walking halfway up and then stopping to pull out her phone. She dialed the number of Irene Adler.

A few minutes later, after a brief conversation, in the stairwell Mary could hear faint disco music coming from the pool. _Stayin' Alive._

From the look of him, Moriarty was younger than Mary and disco was really before both of them were old enough to pay attention to popular music so she was surprised at first by the choice of ringtone. But then she thought he must have liked the song for the same reason she wanted a normal life (sometimes); the nostalgia and sentimental feelings of childhood.

Mary heard the door to the stairs open and Moriarty's voice as he concluded his phone call with Irene. She then heard his footsteps ascend the stairs until she saw the consulting criminal at the foot of the stairs, glaring up at her.

"This is your fault, isn't it?" He 'deduced', "You gave Irene Atlas—or whatever her name is—my number."

"You should thank me." Mary admitted, "You get off on messing with people, don't you? And since Sherlock Holmes is the only one smart enough to challenge you, wouldn't you rather have him alive so you can keep playing with him?"

"Makes sense." Moriarty admitted, "But why would_ you_ care? Why would you have some woman call me, offering me state secrets in exchange for not killing Sherlock Holmes tonight? Is it, possibly, because you've fallen _'in love at first site' _with Sherlock? You wouldn't have been the first."

Mary snorted.

"Sherlock Holmes? He's not really my type." She dismissed, still chuckling to herself, "His _friend,_ on the other hand…"

"The toy soldier?" Moriarty identified, "I see you like the _noble_ ones, then." He said the word 'noble' the way one would say the word _'stupid'._

"Well, they do say 'opposites attract'." Mary shrugged, "So are you going to meet with Adler now?"

"Not yet." Moriarty stated, "She's with very special client. But I'll see her tomorrow. Tonight, I think I'll go visit my girlfriend."

"_You_ have a 'girlfriend'?" Mary asked, taken aback, "I thought you were…well, you know."

"Only for Sherlock." Moriarty conditioned, smirking, "But right now he's busy with your 'boyfriend' John. They were stripping off each other's clothing when I walked in on them. Now, they're probably inviting their friends at Scotland Yard to come 'join in'. Which means we'd better be long gone by the time they get here. Unless you want to be introduced to your new crush in the interrogation room, that is."

"No, I don't." Mary said.

"Then go tell the army upstairs to deploy back to where they came from." Moriarty instructed, "They'll get their payment. And so will you."

Mary nodded, then turned and continued up the stairs to the benches of the balcony to do as she was told. Moriarty turned went back down the stairs he had just come up, to leave the building and go see his 'girlfriend'.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Molly Hooper knew where she was. She was at work, in the laboratory upstairs in Saint Bartholomew's hospital.

It was larger and more colorful than usual, connected with the basement morgue full of bodies when she looked to her left, and much of the machinery and many of the test tubes and manuals had moved when she looked back right after looking left.

She looked straight ahead.

Sherlock Holmes stood before her in his coat, his scarf and all his glory.

Molly concentrated and could make out the features she had memorized on his long face; full lips, blue eyes, high cheekbones.

He spoke with his deep voice, "I deduce that you only dated Jim to make me jealous."

"No! I didn't!" Molly protested. But she knew Sherlock knew she was lying. He knew everything.

She had to get back to work. If she was busy, maybe Sherlock would leave. She looked down at the table in the middle of the room but could not find the beaker of chemical she had been running a test on. _Where was it? It was just here!_

…and why was_ Sherlock_ here? He only ever came by when he needed something for an experiment or a case. But he hadn't requested anything yet. So why was he here? Could it be because…

"I also deduce that it _worked."_ Sherlock declared, "Sentiment is a weakness but I can no longer deny my feelings for you, Molly."

Molly gasped.

She couldn't believe it but she knew it was true. Sherlock had finally declared his feelings for her.

"Come with me," Molly requested, taking Sherlock by the hand. He allowed her to lead him into the next room.

Her bedroom.

Not the one at her flat, but the one in the house had lived in with her mother and father during primary and secondary school. The posters and bookshelves had been kept mostly intact after she had moved out, but the bed from her flat had replaced her old twin mattress from childhood.

Molly stood on her tiptoes to kiss Sherlock for the first time. He wrapped his arms around her; he was no longer wearing his coat and scarf, and she was no longer wearing her labcoat and ID badge (in fact, Molly wasn't sure if either of them were wearing anything at all by this point).

Suddenly, Molly realized they were being watched and broke the kiss. She and Sherlock turned to look at her bed.

Jim was sitting on the edge of it.

"Why are you cheating on me, Molly?" he demanded, "I thought you were a good person! How could you lie to me?!"

"_You_ lied to _me!"_ Molly shouted at him, "You pretended to like me so that you could get to Sherlock because you really like _him!"_

Jim stood up.

"Sherlock is _mine."_ He declared.

"No he's not!" Molly countered. She turned to look up at Sherlock worriedly, "You love me, right? Not him. _Sherlock?"_

"Sorry, Molly." Sherlock apologized, "I'm gay."

"No!" Molly cried.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Molly jerked awake, not because of the sound of knocking on her front door, but because her cat Toby, who had been sleeping on her chest, had dug his claws into her skin through the blanket and the fabric of the stained, stretched out t-shirt she used as a pajama top when nobody was around.

_Knock. Knock. Knock. _

Molly heard the persistent sound this time. _Who could it be at this hour? _

The brown and white striped cat then jumped up and off the bed to go paw at the bedroom door, hoping Molly would soon open it so he could go investigate the sound. Molly sat up in bed and grabbed her mobilephone from the nightstand, clicking the screen on to check the time.

_2:03 AM. _

She sighed, threw the covers off of her and stood up. She then leaned down, feeling around the floor in the dark with her free hand, her phone as a flashlight, for the sweatpants that were to itchy to actually sleep in. By the time she had found them, put her legs into them and her phone into one of their pockets, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness…just in time to turn on the light.

She switched on her bedroom light by the door, which she opened letting her and Toby into the dark hall.

_Knock. Knock. Knock. _

_Again?! _Not only was this person rude, knocking at two in the morning, but impatient as well.

(Secretly, Molly hoped it would be Sherlock. She vaguely remembered a dream she was just having about him…)

Molly, Toby underfoot, stumbled to the front door, found the lightswitch for the hallway beside it and flipped it on, and then gazed with one eye out the peephole.

Standing outside her door was the distorted form of Jim.

_(Gay_ Jim. _Liar_ Jim. And now_, rude_ and _impatient _Jim.)

"What do you want, Jim?" Molly groaned through the door, leaning face first against it in her sleepiness. She had closed her eyes once she had seen who it was.

(This was one of the few nights in a week she_ didn't_ have to work the nightshift, causing her sleep schedule to be off, so she really needed the sleep.)

"Please let me in." Jim begged, "I saw your message to me on your blog. I want to apologize to you. You never let me explain."

"I know being gay is hard, some people aren't comfortable with their sexualities, especially when other people out them like that, so I forgive you for lying since you're probably going through a lot." Molly mumbled, regretting the blog post she had written out of guilt after yelling at a confused gay man for liking another man and not her, "I wrote the message so we wouldn't part on bad terms. Not so that you'd wake me up in the middle of the night."

"Sorry about the timing." Jim replied, "But after what I've done to you, you deserve to know the truth."

"Okay." Molly agreed, sighing again as she realized she wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight anyway so she might as well let Jim in to explain himself.

She unlocked the door and pulled it open, forcing Toby to dash out of the way so as not to be hit by the door. Jim stepped out of one hall into the next. Molly shut the door behind him, locking it again, as he turned to face her.

He was wearing a suit. Molly had never seen Jim wear a suit before, he had always worn casual clothes, even to work (though she wasn't sure if Jim actually worked at Bart's since he had made up the nightshift). He looked nice. _Handsome, _even. He had only ever looked _cute_ before.

(And now Molly was embarrassed by her bedhead, ratty t-shirt, and itchy sweatpants that were making her fidget in failing attempts to find comfort.)

"You look beautiful." Jim complimented. It had sounded sarcastic, and since Jim from IT had said it, it _was_…but to Jim _Moriarty,_ the comment was serious as he found people most 'beautiful' at their most vulnerable.

Molly rolled her eyes.

(Gay. Liar. Rude. Impatient. Rud_er.)_

Jim had come to her flat, waking her up in the early morning and demanding to be let in, only to give her a false compliment. _What had she ever seen in him?_ She wondered. (He had reminded her, just a little bit, of Sherlock.)

"I hope you didn't dress up just for me." Molly returned, her best for just being woken.

"Don't worry. I didn't." Jim responded, not as harshly as he could have if he was being himself, "But I do really need to tell you something important enough to come all the way here for this late at night. So can we sit down and talk?"

They did.

Molly chose the table just past the tile of the kitchenette, on the floorboards of the dining area, instead of the couch in the carpeted sitting room so that she would have a barrier between her and Jim. It was wooden with a glasstop instead of a tablecloth.

There was one window, behind where Jim sat and Molly had forgotten to draw the blinds that evening when she was in a hurry to try to sleep, so she could see the lights of the nearby buildings and the dark of the sky contrasting behind him.

Molly didn't offer Jim anything to drink, but made a cup of coffee for herself, sipping it in self-satisfied passive aggression in front of him. He scowled but said nothing about it.

Instead, he began with "I'm not actually gay. I do like Sherlock, but he's the only man I've ever felt that way about. Other than that, it's women that do it for me. It's the long hair. But Sherlock is just…well, _Sherlock. _What more can I say?_"_

"Honestly I can understand that." Molly accepted, "But what I don't understand is why you dated me if Sherlock is the one you're interested in. Why did you do that?"

"I could ask you the same question." Jim smiled.

Molly looked down, away from him, her mouth scrunched to one side, hidden behind the mug she was pretending to drink from.

"Anyway," Jim continued, "I dated you to get to Sherlock, mostly. You praised him so much on that blog written by his flatmate John Watson—who, by the way, seems to have a little crush on Sherlock, too—that it was obvious that you _liked_ Sherlock as well as knew him. So of course you'd introduce your new boyfriend to him to make him jealous. Well,_ try_ to, at least. It didn't work and never could have. After all, why do you think Sherlock can recognize a gay man in a second, right down to his underwear?"

"He could've learned that on a case." Molly reasoned.

"A case that requires examination of gay men's underwear?" Jim retorted, "Whatever helps you sleep at night." He snickered.

Molly suddenly remembered part of her dream. _("I'm gay." dream Sherlock had said.)_ She set down her coffee mug sharply, causing some of the liquid to spill onto the glass tabletop. She didn't bother going to the kitchen for a paper towel.

"He could be bisexual." Molly tried.

"Or asexual, for that matter." Jim added, "Since John has got a girlfriend and Sherlock never did call that number I left him."

"Then we're really going to need each other, then." Molly joked.

"So you want to get back together?" Jim asked, hopefully.

"I was kidding." Molly refused, flatly, "You used me. And we both are interested in someone else; the _same_ someone else. I don't think it'll work out."

"Really?" Jim checked, "Because I see that as having something in common. Always good in a relationship."

There was silence after he spoke, for a moment. Toby was under the table now, brushing up against both of their legs, back and forth, like a continuous figure-eight.

Jim shifted his legs so his trousers wouldn't get fur on them. Molly glanced under the table at Toby and noticed this.

"What _did_ you dress up for?" she inquired, remembering the out-of-character suit the ever dressed-down Jim from IT was currently wearing.

"Funny story 'bout that, actually..." Jim chuckled, "I dressed up for _Sherlock Holmes."_

Molly blinked.

"You saw him tonight?" she probed, "But I thought you said he never called."

"He didn't." Jim confirmed, "But he should have called _you._ If he cared about you—or even just _remembered _you—he would have called."

"Called why?" Molly asked.

"To warn you." Jim smirked, "About _me." _

His voice had changed now. His voice was lower and his accent was just noticeably different, though Molly couldn't quite place it yet.

The look in his eyes had changed, too. They were darker.

Molly tensed, breath held and eyes widened. Her fingers were tight around the mug.

"…what do you mean…?" she questioned, cautiously.

Jim shook his head down at the table below him and spilled coffee rivering its way across the glass, laughing softly to himself.

"So many questions…you stupid, ordinary people always need to have everything spelled out for you, always want to have everything _explained."_ He complained, "For once in your life figure it out for yourself. _Think."_

Molly furrowed her brows. "You—" She started, opening her mouth and then closing it, unsure of what to say. A possibility had crossed her mind, but it couldn't be true…_could it? _

Jim grinned, baring his teeth at her when he saw in her expression what she now understood, "Deduction in three, two, one…"

* * *

><p>(May, 2011)<p>

The general practice Mary worked at as a nurse was located in a building that had used to be a row of townhouses but had had the walls knocked down after being bought to create a continuous structure in which the residents of the surrounding neighborhood could get their medical treatment.

Mary's own flat was only a few streets away, in fact. Walking to work one cloudy morning, something happened that hadn't happened to her in years.

Someone—a man—had whistled at her from his car as he drove by. Ex-CIA agent, trained killer, identity stealer Mary Morstan had been _catcalled _at.

Mary stopped on the sidewalk and turned to the residential road, looking for the source of the inappropriate greeting. The only moving car on the street full of nice houses and neat lawns was black and expensive.

Out of habit, Mary checked and memorized the license plate. _ICAM. _

The driver's tinted window was closed but the backseat passenger's was completely open. A middle-aged man with dark blond hair and beard leaned out of it as the vehicle came to a stop beside her.

With a long finger, he beckoned her to come closer.

Mary turned and continued walking towards work, eyes straight ahead. She soon heard the car driving slowly next to her (on the wrong side of the road).

"Come here, Mary Morstan." The man's voice, Scandinavian accented, called to her, "Or would you rather I call you by your_ real_ name?"

Mary stopped.

The car stopped.

She turned to face the man in the car. He wore glasses and a suit, and was smiling smugly at her. He was in the back of the expensive car, so he wasn't working for anyone, he was 'the boss' and if 'the boss' was here to talk to her himself, this had to be serious.

(Mary tried to remember if she had ever done anything to piss someone was Denmark, Norway, or Sweden off during her employ as a CIA agent. She couldn't remember anything and she had never even been to any of those countries.)

"Who are you?" Mary asked.

"I'll give you a ride to work." the man stated, "Get in."

"No." Mary refused, "Just because consulate worker told you I bought my name doesn't mean you can harass me. What do you want? Money in exchange for keeping my secret? I would've been willing to pay you if you had been less _rude _about it."

"I don't want money." The man scoffed, "I want information. About the CIA." He paused to allow Mary to make a 'deduction', then adding "Yes. I know about _that _too. You may well be the most dangerous woman in London, since you've relocated here. But you've left that all behind now, haven't you? You wouldn't want your past catching up to you, would you…?" He sneered.

Mary smiled right back.

"If you know who I am, then you know what I can do to you…_Mr. Magnussen."_ She returned, realizing the name of the man she was speaking to because his license plate was namesake to his media company, CAM, which was namesake to his initials. His own arrogance had betrayed him. "So you better 'beef up' your security or the most dangerous woman in London may just kill you."

Magnussen chuckled.

"I've always loved Americans." He said, "They get straight to the point and aren't afraid to use _force._ 'Speak softly but carry a big stick', isn't that what one of your presidents said? Good advice. But you didn't 'speak softly', did you, Mary? No you threatened me. That means you probably don't have a 'big stick'. But _I_ do."

"You do?" Mary snorted, trying her best not to smile, "Let's have a look, then. I'd like to judge that for myself." The giggles finally escaped from her mouth and so she directed them down at the pavement until she could compose herself enough to look back up at the man in the car.

"The double meaning was intentional." He claimed, "I'm not afraid of you and what you can do. I _like_ it. It makes me want to add you to my collection. And so I will. I'll enjoy owning you, Mary. I've always loved the evil women…"

"You don't scare me, either." Mary countered, "You have nothing on me. If I give you information about the CIA, and you use it, they will know it was me who gave it to you and use you to find me. So you're threat to tell them where I am doesn't work. And if you _do _tell them where I am, then you will be exposing yourself to the CIA without having anything to use against them yet."

_"Smart._" Magnussen commented, "But not _genius._ You'll soon see why. We'll be in touch." With that, he pressed the button to shut his tinted window and then the black car sped away.

Mary was left standing in the sidewalk, wondering what do about this strange new enemy. She'd deal with that later.

Right now, she was late for work.

* * *

><p>(February, 2012)<p>

After being dragged away by security and taken to a small room somewhere in which he got his head kicked in and his body patted down for weapons by a current white supremacist and an ex-soldier, Jim Moriarty was finally brought up to the office of Charles Augustus Magnussen, who was wondering just who would make such a pitiful attempt at breaking into it.

The two bodyguards took Jim up the back staircase (over thirty flights of stairs), each of them holding one of his arms in what must have been standard procedure for musclemen who worked for those more powerful and intelligent than them. They passed the secretary at her desk, peaking past her computer screen to see if anything interesting was going on in her otherwise boring day answering and making phone calls.

She had long dark hair and pretty dark eyes.

Jim winked at her as he was being shuffled by her desk by the two guards. She cringed, turning back to her screen.

Most women would've rolled their eyes, laughing it off (or just flicked him off), but this woman's reaction was not only disgust but _fear…_

_(Disgust _because she was tired of being harassed in such a manner, meaning this kind of thing happened often to her, therefore the harasser was someone close to her with power over her who she couldn't stop, so her boss, which explained the _fear_ because she would get in trouble with her boss if he knew other men were interested in what he had decided was his property.)

… So it wasn't hard for Jim to guess that she was having a less than consensual affair with her boss.

Now Jim was in said boss's office. It was square and mostly windows, overlooking city from the thirty-second floor like a satellite watching from space, spying on all the world's secrets.

Charles Augustus Magnussen (whom like most famous criminals (excluding Jim Moriarty, Jeffery Dahmer and Ted Bundy) always seemed to be referred to by his first, middle and last name) was _not_ sitting at his glass desk—which held no computer, only lamp, a folder, and lockable box.

And so the bodyguards continued to pull Jim along, turning another corner and bringing him up another set of stairs (this time glass) up to the floor Magnussen used as his penthouse when staying in the city for business. It was carpeted, unlike the rest of the building, with spiraling and overlapping circles painted on the walls.

But the bathroom was _not _carpeted. Its cream colored tiles were wet, causing Jim to slip as he was pushed into the room, the door being slammed shut behind him.

The bathroom was steamy, but not enough to obscure the square bathtub built like a jacuzzi into the floor with steps descending into the water. The water was soapy, but not enough to obscure the naked man lounging in it.

(And so Jim smiled, happy to finally meet a person more inappropriate and extreme than himself.)

"Hello there, Jimmy." Magnussen greeted, using the nickname he knew Jim hated, "I would've dressed and met you downstairs in my office…but then I realized you aren't important enough to interrupt my bath."

"And yet you couldn't wait to see me until you were finished?" Jim countered, examining the man. He wasn't wearing clothes, so there was nothing he could tell from his choice in fashion. "I'd call that _eager_, Mr. Magnet."

But Magnussen _was _wearing glasses. In the bath. _Who wore glasses in the bath? _And _why…? _

"Oh, I always have a visitor around this time so I don't mind." Magnussen explained, "Usually it's Janine. You saw her downstairs. Pretty, right? She's happy you're here. She thinks it means she won't have to spongebathe me today. She's wrong, of course. But I'll let her enjoy that hope for a little longer while we talk. Unless you would like me to call her up now so you can _watch?"_

"Maybe next time." Jim refused.

"Sarcasm." Magnussen commented, closing his eyes thoughtfully, "Sarcasm is tactful humor. Funny, sometimes clever, but never very bold. You're a coward. Even _you_—the mysterious and dangerous James Moriarty—are too restrained to be a _true_ threat to me."

"Who says I want to be?" Jim tried.

"I know all about you, 'consulting criminal'." Magnussen informed, "It is your mission to be a threat to everyone you meet; ally or enemy. But now that you've met me, you have failed. I smell your fear. It stinks like every Englishman's."

"Not English, Swede." Jim corrected, then misidentifying Magnussen's country of origin in return and stating, _"Irish."_

"No, you're not." Magnussen dismissed, with a chuckle and a shake of his bearded head, "You're English. You speak _their_ language, you use _their _governmental model, you bowed to _their _kings for centuries and have a failing economy without _their_ management. There's no such thing as _'Irish'." _

"At least I'm not a pastry." Jim retorted.

"No, and you don't smell as _sweet _as one, either." Magnussen insulted, "The only way you—or any other one of your countrymen—can smell _sweet_ is after you have sweat yourself dry of all your resistance to me, and accept that I know everything about you, so much so that I am_ inside_ of you. That I _own_ you. The only way you can ever smell sweet is with the scent of me all over you."

"I'm flattered that you want to be 'inside me' and 'all over me'." Jim replied, dryly, "But you're not really my type. Tall, _yes._ Skinny,_ yes. _Smart, yes. But _not _a detective."

"A detective?" Magnussen repeated, "By that, I assume you mean Sherlock Holmes."

"So you've heard of him, then?" Jim checked. He glanced around the bathroom. Only the large bathtub (with no curtain), a separate shower (encased by glass), and a sink were in the manila room. The toilet must have been in the next one.

"Yes, but I know more about his brother." Magnussen detailed, "Mycroft Holmes is in very many places all over the world, for someone who sits behind a desk all day. A very interesting man, however, I would love to learn more about your detective."

"You're in luck, then." Jim declared, "Because I can tell you his whole life story…_for a price."_ He backed up until he felt the metal stainless-steel sink, covered in condensation, dampen his new buttondown shirt. He hopped up to sit on it, slipping slightly until he found his balance, and dampening his new bluejeans.

(He had to buy new clothes after being released from Mycroft's prison, since Mycroft's employees never gave him back his suit and shoes, and had dropped him off in the middle of London in his underclothes. He had gotten some strange looks in the store, but the owner had let him walk out in a new outfit without paying, assuming he was drunk or high and so not somebody to challenge.)

"Surely you don't have money troubles, _Jimmy?" _Magnussen assumed, "Even with your own Criminal Network turned against you, you still have Lord Moran as your benefactor—oh, wait, no you don't. _Not anymore._ The very man who acted as a father to you, since your whore of a mother couldn't locate your _real _one, has betrayed you, too. Gave you to Mycroft Holmes in exchange for a seat at Mycroft's little 'roundtable' meetings that decide the fate of the country. Oh, how I would love to sit in on one of those. It would be far more interesting and influential than those boring ones at Downing Street. But your dear Lord didn't want to invite me and so I got his invitation revoked, as well. Do you know how I did it?"

"I suppose it has something to do with the mystery man who busted me out of Mycroft's prison." Jim supposed, "Mycroft wouldn't tell me his name so he_ must_ be 'important'. Are you going to keep his identity a secret, _too,_ Mr. Mayonnaise? Or you going to tell me who he is and spoil the surprise?"

"I don't 'keep' secrets, I _expose_ them." Magnussen said, "The man calls himself 'Mr. Banks', though that isn't his_ real_ name. But 'James Moriarty' isn't _your_ real name, either, so that doesn't matter. Banks is the reason you and your mother had to be spirited away to Ireland and hidden there when you were a little boy. He wanted you dead. And for almost twenty years, he believed you _were,_ thanks to Moran. But now your protector no longer wants to protect you. When I told Moran I would inform Mr. Banks of who you are and how you're still alive, if he didn't bring me along to Mycroft's bi-monthly meeting, the _appointed-_Lord _allowed _me to tell. I'll have to find a new pressure point for him, as it seems he has abandoned caring about _you."_

"'_Seems'."_ Jim repeated, "So you have realized that 'all is not what it _seems'."_

"You had to have found out that I wanted information on Sherlock Holmes from someone." Magnussen explained, "And it probably wasn't my PA. I keep a close eye on her. But now comes the time when you tell me why you went through weeks of torture to get that information for me."

"For _you?"_ Jim snorted, "You're not a player in this game, you're just the _board._ The backdrop that will make _my_ moves possible."

"Why would I do that?" Magnussen questioned, taking off his glasses and dipping them into the bathwater.

"Because that's the 'price' I mentioned before," Jim answered, "for giving you Sherlock Holmes's life story. I'll tell you everything about him, but in return you've got to do something for me."

"What _something?"_ Magnussen asked.

"Oh, nothing too much." Jim minimized, "Just have it published. Sherlock's life story. I want _everyone_ to know _everything _about him. Not _everything,_ of course. You still get some little details all to yourself for…whatever it is you do with people's secrets; wank off to them in the bathtub or something like that, blackmail people. But the _good_ stuff—and the _lies_—I want _those_ in the papers. I won't bore you with the reasons_ why_, since you don't seem the kind interested in complicated villainous schemes, but as you can probably guess I'm gearing up for something _big._"

"I don't care _what_ you do…as long as it doesn't make the information you give me about Sherlock Holmes _useless."_ Magnussen qualified, "It won't do that, will it, Jimmy? And don't try to lie me. For your sake. There are always consequences for people who lie to me. So will your plan prevent me from using the information about Sherlock Holmes?"

"Of course not, Mr. Magazine." Jim grinned.

"Good." Magnussen smiled back. "Now, that we've made a deal, shall we shake on it?" He stood up and stepped through the water, out of the tub.

Now Jim could see that the man was taller than him and had to force himself not to look away, leering right at him so as to be as passive-aggressively intimidating. Magnussen approached Jim through the steam, one had extended and the other hand holding his glasses. Jim jumped down from the sink and extended his own hand towards him.

But before Jim could shake Magnussen's hand, Magnussen coughed for a moment in his throat until he was able to spit a mucusball of saliva into his hand. Jim glanced down at it, grimacing, and then back up at Magnussen who smirked.

So Jim simply spit into his own hand and then used it to grab Magnussen's spitty hand and give it hearty shake. (He just had to pretend his hand was a glove, promising himself to thoroughly wash it later.

"That's the way they do it in Norway, then?" he chuckled.

"I'm from Denmark." Magnussen corrected, pulling his hand away, "But I do things _my_ way. And so, because I am who I am, does everyone else. Including _you."_ He took his hand and wiped the saliva and mucus off onto Jim's new shirt, then putting back on his glasses. "There's no such thing as _English,_ either." He added, "Only _me."_

* * *

><p>(December, 1991—April, 2014)<p>

As for the one person who did survive the car crash, her name was Janine.

She was Mary Morstan's best friend and the drunk driver of the car. In the dizzy hysteria and confusion after the crash, just before dawn, Janine had managed to wrestle out of her seat and position the (dead? unconscious?) Mary into it, switching places with her and then drifting off to a concussed sleep in the front passenger's. When the police and paramedics pulled everyone from the vehicles, they never questioned that the dead girl was the driver and that poor Janine, who had just lost her best friend, was lucky to be alive.

Janine kept this secret ever since, even from herself, pretending that it was a clouded dream or muddled memory, made foggy from the alcohol and the head injury she was later diagnosed with. Twenty years later she had already grieved and moved on. She had forced herself to forget.

…Until someone came along who had discovered the truth and forced her to remember.

And to be his PA.

His name, of course, was Charles Augustus Magnussen. (As if nobody was tired of those three self-absorbed names of that one self-absorbed man.)

After failing to properly blackmail (own) Mary Morstan, Magnussen sent his Personal Assistant to befriend the ex-CIA agent and spy on her for him.

Mary realized this as soon as she had met the brunette. But she did nothing about it, not wanting to let Magnussen know that she knew. Besides, she needed a female friend, anyway…

The women went shopping together and met up for coffee. Both had recently moved to the city, and so they few other friends there. And Mary needed the time away from her boring boyfriend, David. The two were even flatmates for a while...until Mary met John, broke up with David, and moved in with him.

(But that was another story.)

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

"…it was _you?"_ Molly gasped, eyes wide. Had grip been a bodybuilder's, the ceramic mug would have shattered in her hand, _"You?!" _

"_Good girl."_ Jim praised her, the way one would praise a small child. He stood up, so that he would be above, not eyelevel with, her. The wooden chair he'd been seated in screeched behind him as he pushed it away to circle the table—or rather, the woman sitting at it—like a drone over a target; watching, not yet deciding whether to strike.

"_You're _the one who kidnapped those people and blew up that building?!" Molly listed.

"Well, not me _personally."_ Jim corrected, "But yeah, I gave the order."

"_You're_ the one who left the clues so that Sherlock would solve those crimes, crimes that _you _helped commit…" Molly continued, in shock and disbelief.

"Yes, yes, that was me." Jim confirmed, waving his hand in the hopes of hurrying her revelation along.

He didn't need to be reminded of what he had done—he'd been the one to do it! And although he loved praise _and_ scorn for his actions, Molly was giving him neither. She was simply stating facts. And facts were boring. _Interpretation_ was fun.

Molly laughed. Nervously, but fully. It caused Jim to stop and blink.

"You're just kidding, aren't you?" she checked, "Playing a prank on me for breaking up with you. It _couldn't_ have been you! _You _couldn't have done all that._ You dated me! _We watched _Glee_ together! _You sang along! _I taught you how to use a coffee-maker! This is a joke. It _has_ to be!"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Jim dismissed.

Molly continued to laugh, now less nervously as she had convinced herself it was a joke.

"Good one." She smiled up at him, still giggling, "I almost fell for it. And I'm not mad or anything. I can take a joke."

"…You don't believe me?" Jim asked, surprised and offended.

"Of course not!" Molly responded, "You already told me you like Sherlock and you'd never get him to like _you_ by…" she trailed off, considering her statement and then realizing the truth.

Jim grinned. The status quo had been restored. Molly's laughter had stopped and her wide eyes and tensed muscles had returned.

"…oh god." Molly gulped, "It really was you. The only way someone could get Sherlock's attention is through a case. So you had to give him one."

"_Four,_ actually." Jim amended.

"Five." Molly added, voice and breath unsteady, "If you're the one responsible for the bombs…then the only reason you'd be here is to kill me."

"Don't be silly." Jim snorted_, "I_ don'tkill people. I _hire_ people to kill people."

"That's the same thing." Molly stated, "Take responsibility."

"Young lady, is that any way to talk to someone you believe is going to kill you?" Jim chided.

"If you're going to do it, I might as well speak my mind." Molly shrugged, sniffing. She stared down at the mug in her hand, not making eye-contact with Jim and not moving—not _able _to make eye-contact, not _able_ to move.

(Jim wondered if she was trying not to cry. There were no tears…_yet.)_

"You're taking this surprisingly well." Jim commented, patting her on the back, "I'm proud." She shivered at his touch—_finally some motion_—and so he smirked.

"…Thank you..." Molly murmured down to the now lukewarm coffee.

"Or do you still think Sherlock's going to burst in and save you?" Jim suspected, "Still holding out hope that he _cares…"_

"No, I know he doesn't." Molly replied, shaking her head solemnly, "Like you said, if he did, he'd be here by now. And he _isn't._ So he _doesn't."_

"But _I'm_ here. So_ I_ do." Jim recounted her words from their first night together, "Like _you _said."

Molly smiled, weakly.

"I'm just glad that I won't see it coming." She said in a bittersweet whisper, eyes closed, "It'll be instant. I'll be gone but I'll never know it. No time for pain."

"What do you mean?" Jim inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"It'll be a sniper, won't it?" Molly explained, opening up her eyes and finally looking up at the criminal standing next to her, "It's what you used for the bombing, anyway. I've done autopsies on bullet wounds those shot in the head by a sniper before. It's always quick. A, well, _pleasant _way to die—at least compared to getting shot anywhere else, or being stabbed, or succumbing to a disease. Pleasant because there's no _dying._ No process, drawn out over hours or days or months. Just _death._ Instant."

"You've put a bit of thought into it, haven't you?" Jim chuckled, "Dying."

"How could I not?" Molly returned, "It's my job."

Jim nodded.

"But you're not going to die." He informed, "I'm not going to kill you—or have you killed. What would be the point? Sherlock doesn't care about you, so your death wouldn't serve any purpose to me."

"Then why are you here?" Molly asked.

Jim let out a laugh at that question. "I already told you, don't you remember?" he answered, "Because I _care _about you."

"You don't care about me." Molly countered, "If you _did, _you wouldn't have lied."

"I care about Sherlock Holmes and I tried to _kill _him." Jim shrugged, "Sometimes the ones who love us are the ones that hurt us the most."

"You're here to gloat." Molly declared, turning, rising and facing Jim Moriarty, "You fooled me. But that's not much of an accomplishment. _I'm_ not a genius." She folded her arms.

"But Sherlock_ is_ and I fooled _him,_ too." Jim reminded, "I already gloated to him about that, though. It was why I went out and bought the gay underwear, special, just for him. You never saw me where anything like that before, did you?"

"No," Molly admitted, "But I did only sleep with you two times."

"Then take my word for it, I'll never wear those again." Jim declared, "Not enough…_support_—if you know what I mean."

Molly rolled her eyes at that.

…Then she realized _who_ she was rolling her eyes at so quickly turned her pupils down at the floor. Toby was licking his crotch under the table, unaware that the most dangerous man in London had invaded his owner's flat (or that anyone was watching him clean himself).

Following Molly's gaze, Jim glanced over at the cat next.

"Majestic creatures." He commented, now rolling_ his_ eyes, "But I would have gone with the gay best friend, myself, though. Less body hair." He shook and wiped his leg, trying to get the fur off his suit, then turned back to Molly.

"If you're not here to kill me and not here to gloat, then you're here to scare me." She decided, voice deliberately and carefully even, "As someone who'd have innocent people kidnapped and blown up you'd enjoy that sort of thing. But that's not much of an accomplishment, either. I'm a single woman living alone. I'm not that hard to scare."

"You just want to spoil my night, don't you?" Jim gathered, snorting, "But you're being pretty bold for someone who claims to be scared."

"I have to stand up to you, Jim." Molly explained, matter-of-factly, "It's what Sherlock would do." She used the name as new resolve.

"Sherlock's very good…but not _perfect._" Jim said, "Sometimes, he gets things wrong. I know, hard to believe. But it's true…"

"What did he get wrong?" Molly questioned.

"You want to be like him, don't you?" Jim responded, folding his arms, "You guess. I bet you can get it, if you try. You admire Sherlock so much for what he does, but how can you expect him to want you when you can't do the same? It seems like magic to you, so you don't bother to try. But it's _not._ It's _mind._ And you have one, too. So use it. Here, I'll even give you a_ clue_…it has to do with the shoes Sherlock was messing about with in the lab when he called me 'gay'."

"The shoes?" Molly recounted, furrowing her forehead in thought, "So that would be…the Carl Powers case?" Jim nodded, so Molly continued, "You killed him…but no, you said you don't kill people yourself. You_ hire_ them. But you would've been too young to hire someone back when Carl died in the…late eighties, I think. So how did he die…?"

"Sherlock and I were eleven when it happened." Jim informed, "Even back then he knew Carl's death was no 'tragic accident'. But he didn't think any further than the death itself. _Couldn't._ Not then and not even _now._ You can, though, Molly. Carl was just _dead,_ to Sherlock, a _case._ His _first _case. But what would he be to _you,_ if he were on your morgue table?"

Molly was silent for a moment, pondering Jim's question. She held her thumb and pointer-finger up to her lips during the silence. Then, after the long seconds, she removed them and finally spoke.

"A _son."_ She realized, "I would've had to explain to his grieving parents how he had died; why their child was dead before his time."

"_That's right."_ Jim smiled, sincerely although it was a smirk, "And _Sherlock_ never would've come up with that. He never would've thought to talk to Carl's parents. To find out that poor dead Carl didn't _have_ a father, and that his mother quit her job the day before he died, and vanished the next day—sort of like his daddy did, in way, except she was gone from the whole country. And that there was still a funeral that none of his family bothered to make it to, a show for the spectators—just like Carl's _very public_ death. Sherlock read about it in the papers, stole all the medical details from the sealed records, but he never noticed any of _that."_

"The human element." Molly labeled, "Sherlock isn't very good at that. But nobody's good at everything. And he's still a genius."

"Yes he is." Jim agreed, "But he's also too smart for his own good. You, however, are _not. _So use your simple, _emotional_ mind to figure out the one thing Sherlock didn't. I practically told you already so I know you can do it, Molly."

"You didn't tell—how could I…" Molly started and stopped, and started and stopped again, pausing to think.

At first it almost seemed to her like Jim was implying he hadn't killed Carl and that Carl's mother had, and then fled the country. But if that was had happened, then Jim wouldn't have a reason to expose the crime to Sherlock, _so…_

…_so…_

(She clenched her eyelids and fists as tightly as she could, as if the tension could force her brain to work faster, _better.)_

…_so…_

None of the family had attended the funeral. Carl's mother had disappeared from England and left the country—but how would_ Jim_, just a child at the time, have known that? _Unless…_

There was really only _one_ way Molly could think of that explained how Jim could have known that.

…_so…_

Molly's eyes opened.

"Carl Powers didn't die." She declared.

"Good." Jim praised her, the way one would praise a successful student, "And what _else?_ Deduction in three, two, one…"

* * *

><p>(March—June, 2012)<p>

Jim Moriarty was surprised when the woman who called herself Mary Morstan contacted him with her problem. He hadn't been a practicing consulting criminal for a while, by then (since his own Criminal Network was out to get him, and all that) and had changed his phone number so wasn't sure how she had gotten it.

Still, like the good friend he was, he listened.

Mary's problem was named (surprise, surprise) Charles Augustus Magnussen. He somehow knew about her CIA past and wanted to "own" her with this knowledge.

Jim had just recently found out about this man, a media tycoon from Denmark, from Lord Moran who had apparently been blackmailed by him as well (CAM sure seemed to get around) when he had learned that Moran was now invited to Mycroft Holmes's secret (to _most people,_ at least) meetings at some place called Diogenes Club where nobody talked.

Jim had been planning on meeting up with Magnussen anyway (after he was done being arrested, as per Moran's deal with Mycroft), so it would be no hassle to fix Mary's problem while he was at it.

He told Mary that the way to protect herself from Magnussen was to hook herself up with John Watson, a man whom she had conveniently already expressed her attraction towards.

_Why?_

Because Jim Moriarty was going to fake his suicide.

And he was going to _make _Sherlock Holmes face _his,_ as well.

Dying in front of Sherlock Holmes was the only way for Jim to escape not only hi_m,_ but his Criminal Network and MycroftHolmes, too. Mycroft and Sherlock would never believe that Jim was actually dead unless at least one of them had witnessed it themselves, and the Criminal Network would never stop hunting Jim down to kill him unless they heard from a reliable source that he was already dead.

Meanwhile, the only way to get genius Sherlock _stupid _enough to fall for a faked death was to distract Sherlock by making him have to come up with his_ own_ plan fake his_ own_ death—Immediately after Jim faked his, so that he would be unable to examine Jim's body, all the while worrying about the safety of his friends.

And Sherlock having _friends_ was what made everything possible.

Sherlock Holmes was once solely detached and rational; uncaring and unemotional. (He had made himself this way on purpose, as Jim would learn from Mycroft later) Now, he was still _mostly_ detached and rational; uncaring and unemotional…but not _completely._

There were three new people he cared about—not because he _chose _to, but because he couldn't help it. (This excluded his brother and parents, who his love for was grudging and unadmitted, and who were much less accessible to Jim and anyone he hired.) And so those people facilitated the situation in which Sherlock had to commit (fake his) suicide.

Jim would make it obvious that he planned to force Sherlock to commit suicide. He would use Magnussen's media connections to 'prove' Sherlock was a fraud who paid him, _Richard Brook,_ to pretend to be James Moriarty, consulting criminal. The ends to stories of humiliating secrets exposed was almost always suicide, so Sherlock would easily understand the game as soon as he read the papers.

But how would this solve _Mary's_ problem?

Sherlock, while pretending to be dead, would want John protected in his absence. And so Mycroft would do the protecting.

John, believing his best friend to be dead, would be _lonely._ He would need a friend. Mary would be that friend (and, if she had her way, more) and so by extension, receive Mycroft's protection.

And with Sherlock pretending to be dead (and Magnussen not knowing that it was _pretending), _Magnussen would have nothing to use against Mycroft and so be unable to steal Mary out from under Mycroft's protection.

Satisfied, Mary agreed to this plan.

…So months later, when Jim put it into action she helped him with it; filling as the medical examiner (forged certifications, again) preforming the autopsy while Molly was busy helping Sherlock, and was there in the aftermath to help John recover from watching his best friend die.

Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes had _both_ anticipated that Moriarty wanted Sherlock to commit suicide (as _Jim_ had anticipated). But they hadn't expected _Moriarty _to commit suicide himself, so were both shocked and unprepared for it, leading to _error._

Jim, on the other hand, was confident that Sherlock was going to fake his death as soon as he didn't bother to ask for proof that he had gunmen on his three closest companions.

The kidnapped children, Maxwell and Claudette, were just more clients of Jim's. Their father, Rufus Bruhl, ambassador to the USA, wanted custody of them so he could bring them to the US with him. But his ex-wife, their mother who lived in England, wouldn't let him have them. The children's part in Jim's scheme would prove that their mother was unfit because she left them alone in a boarding school which they had gotten kidnapped from, thus awarding Rufus custody.

The siblings, like Hansel and Gretel, also contributed to the German fairtytale theme, which Jim had chosen because he wanted his and Sherlock's rivalry to be timeless, dark and a bit childish. (And because, according to Mycroft, Sherlock had always hated fairytales ever since he was a boy, as they were illogical and he was unable to predict their endings the way he could mystery novels.)

Sherlock Holmes faked his suicide with help from Molly, Mycroft and his Homeless Network.

Jim Moriarty faked his suicide with help from Mary, Moran, and his Criminal Network.

(The Criminal Network was only 'helping' in the sense that they were gunning each other down in the streets over a computer keycode made up as something for them to search for instead of trying to kill Jim and something that they needed Jim _alive_ for. This maintained the illusion to make Sherlock think that Jim still _had_ a Criminal Network.)

Once both were 'dead', Jim was finally safe because not only did Sherlock and Mycroft both think he had died, but they were also both hunting down and destroying the Criminal Network out to kill him.

The perfect plan.

…but _how?_ How, how, _how_ did Jim Moriarty shoot himself in the mouth and survive?

_How?_

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

"You're Carl Powers." Molly recognized.

"Yes." Jim confirmed, with a nod, "Or, at least, I _was."_

"But Sherlock said that you said you 'never liked' Carl," Molly reminded, "That he 'laughed at' you."

"I never did like the preppy little boy I pretended to be to please my mother." Jim explained, "I always hated swimming, made my skin dry up and flake off. And my daddy left when he found out I was going to be born. My life was a _joke._ What else could I do but laugh at it? But_ now_ I don't have to play nice for my mummy anymore, I don't wish my daddy would finally come home anymore, I don't have to swim and get all scaly like a lizard anymore…" he cringed at the memory, "So _yes,_ I _did _stop Carl from laughing. At himself, anyway. Now I just laugh at everyone else." He cheekily at the end of the last sentence, proud of his ascent from his 'humble beginnings'.

"…oh. Okay." Molly accepted, taking a moment to breathe and process what Jim had just said, "…but why did you have to fake your death at such a young age? Who helped you?"

"What makes you think I had any help?" Jim questioned, defensively, "I was a smart kid. Even though I pretended to be a dumb jock."

"You said your mother didn't go to the funeral and left the country, which means you probably did, too." Molly recounted, "You two went into hiding. Why?"

"Saw some things I shouldn't have." Jim shrugged, "I'm not going to say anymore. Though, I'll give you a cookie if you ever figure it out. Or a _kiss,_ if you'd rather…." He winked.

Molly glared.

"I really _did_ like you." She sighed, shoving her hands into her pockets and sinking back down into her seat, "Honestly. Not as much as I like Sherlock. But still, I wish you were who you had said you were when we first met..."

"No you don't." Jim dismissed, chuckling, "After Sherlock Holmes, how could you ever go back to liking anybody ordinary?" He maneuvered around the table to sit back down in his seat, too, mirroring her movement and looking across the table into her eyes.

The striped cat decided then that it was time to hop up from the floor onto the table, (avoiding the coffee spill but causing the mug to tremble), demanding the attention he had deserved. The humans had been ignoring him for too long in favor of their conversation. He meowed and so Jim reached out to pet him (after rolling up his sleeve).

Molly, while Jim was distracted, seized the moment to move her fingers inside her pocket onto her phone without him noticing. She was dialing a number, hoping her muscle memory was correct about where each digit was on the keypad.

_999._

Jim was petting Toby's back when suddenly the faint sound of ringing and then, almost instantly after, a garbled voice asking _"What's you're emergency?"_

Now Jim sighed, hand dropping from the cat's fur onto the glasstop of the wooden table. "Oh, Molly…why'd you have to go and do that?"

"Because it's the right thing to do." She declared.

"But it's not what _Sherlock_ would do." Jim countered, rising from the chair, "You've disappointed me. We were having so much fun, and now you've gone and ruined it. "

"_Good."_ Molly smiled, proudly. Her heart was pounding on her chest, trying to burst out and the blood was racing through her veins, trying to do the same. Her normally peach-pale skin was reddish-pink.

She was afraid, now more than ever.

…but she had no particular reason to be.

"I've got to go now." Jim informed, "But I'll be back. _Someday._ Just because you're a partypooper and need to be punished."

_Knock. Knock. Knock. _

Before Molly could respond to Jim's vague threat (he was good at those, wasn't he?), they heard the conversation-stopping sharpness of knuckles on wood.

"You better go get that." Jim invited, pointing towards the front door just out of Molly's view, blocked by the shelf-covered wall of the kitchenette.

Molly didn't move.

If she turned, would he shoot her or stab her in back?

And if she_ didn't_ turn, was there anything preventing him from shooting or stabbing her in the front?

_Knock. Knock. Knock. _

"What are you waiting for?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

Molly didn't know.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Finally, Molly decided to risk turning and running to the door. He was strong enough not to need to attack her from behind and if he had sniper watching her, then they could shoot her from the front as easily as from the back.

(And Jim did have a sniper watching her—he just didn't know it. Mary Morstan had followed him, wanting to find out just who was his 'girlfriend' and was currently in the next building spying on the two with the scope of her weapon.)

She swirled away from Jim and sprinted towards the door, fumbling to unlock it and then swinging it opening as fast as she could once she managed to, causing it to slam into the wall beside it.

Sherlock Holmes, John Watson and Gregory Lestrade stood before her, blinking in surprise at the amount of force in which she had thrown open the door they (well, Lestrade) had just been knocking on.

Sherlock was _here!_

He _did_ care after all!

(And he was seeing her in her old pajamas with messy hair!)

"See, I told you she would be just fine." Sherlock told John and Lestrade, gesturing towards Molly without looking at her, "Moriarty doesn't find her important enough to kill her."

"But he killed the old woman—and everyone on her floor—for describing his _voice."_ John reminded, "And Molly saw his face."

"So did _we."_ Sherlock returned, "And we're still alive."

"Just barely." John muttered.

"Moriarty is long gone by now." Sherlock decided, hands in his pockets.

"Actually…" Molly began, but then trailed off when she glanced behind her to see the window by the table wide open, its blinds blowing in the light breeze.

Her flat was on the sixteenth floor. (And just like most flats there was no fire escape.)

…_How…?_

Sherlock noticed what Molly was staring at, pushed past her to enter the flat and went over to examine the window. John and Lestrade followed him in, leaving Molly to shut the door behind them and then catch up.

She found them by the table; Sherlock looking out the window, John sitting down where Jim had sat (away from the spilled coffee), and Lestrade petting Toby.

"What do you see?" John called over to Sherlock, rubbing his knee slightly under the table where no one could see.

"The heat's on, but the window's open." He muttered, more to himself than to John.

"And two chairs are pulled out of the table." Lestrade added, turning away from Toby towards the consulting detective, then bracing himself for Sherlock calling him stupid as usual.

It didn't happen.

Sherlock spun around dramatically to face the group, coat swirling behind him, its motion augmented by the wind.

Molly couldn't help but whisper to herself, "Deduction in three, two, one…"

* * *

><p><strong>There you have it! I hope you liked it! <strong>

**Sorry it ran on kinda long and sorry for all the telling not showing. The reason for that is because we've got to get through the season 1 and 2 stuff, quick, since everyone's already read detailed fics about that time period. **

**And sorry about what Magnussen said. I don't agree with it, of course, there is such a thing as Irish and English. He was just being an asshole. Hope I didn't offend anyone. And sorry I made him naked (or not sorry if you like him like that). **

**How did Jim fake his death? **

**I'll just say it now since it honestly is not very important to the plot of this story. But don't read below if you don't want a minature 'spoiler' for the fic.**

**MINI SPOILER**

_Airsoft gun. Remember Gatiss tweet with that pic of an airsoft sniper? Everyone thought it was about Moran but maybe it was about the type of (fake) gun Jim used to (not) kill himself. Also, Jim's hair looked very gelled that day on the rooftop. Perhaps he had a fake bloodpacket hidden back there..._

**END MINI SPOILER**

**Anyway, please share your thoughts in a review! You know I love them! **


	3. Now I Know My ABC's

**Oh my god I'm so sorry about the wait for this one. And I'm sorry it's shorter than the ones before.**

**Hope you like it!**

* * *

><p>(March, 2012)<p>

A

E

IOU.

(And sometimes Y.)

Jim Moriarty was _supposed_ to be Irish, born and raised…ant yet his accent was almost a little too close to English. Sure, that could've been from living in England while cultivating his Criminal Network (or just taking an extended holiday)—but that didn't actually happen (Jim Moriarty had spent most of his life (including his criminal career) outside of England) and so that wasn't actually the reason.

The reason, of course, was that Jim Moriarty was _not _Jim Moriarty. He was _Carl Powers _and Carl Powers was born in Brighton, _England._

Moving with his mother (who was actually Irish, herself, but upon relocating to England to find work attempted to lose her accent and made sure her son didn't inherit, fearing the possibility of discrimination) to Ireland at only eleven, Carl (whose name was not Carl anymore) was an intelligent and resourceful young boy who adapted to his new environment well and quickly. He listened closely to his classmates at his new school (more closely than he did to the teachers), practicing every night their pacing of words, their pronunciation so that he would fit in. In a few months he was _good…_

…but not _perfect._

The Irish vowels were the hardest. He pronounced his A's and E's fine but the _Is,_ the_ Os_ and the _Us_... he never quite got.

The English pronounced their words in the _back_ of their mouth (almost down in the throat, where the Scottish do) and the Irish pronounced their words in the _front._

Jim pronounced his Is, Os and Us, in the back of his throat. Like an Englishman (or, English_boy, _which he was at the time). Although he tried his best to sound Irish, he couldn't break the muscle memory his tongue had learned as a child in his Brighton school.

Sherlock Holmes realized instantly that old blind woman was from Yorkshire, based on her accent. So why didn't he realize that Jim wasn't born in Ireland? (Sherlock had never said that Jim was, of course, but he never called him out on the affected Irish accent either nor disputed the papers for labeling Moriarty Irishborn.)

Sherlock was blind sometimes—no, in this case, _deaf._

And so, Jim decided to make it easier on the poor idiot (distracted genius). He really wanted Sherlock to figure out his secret.

IOU was just another clue, begging Sherlock to take notice and realize the truth about Carl Powers

(…And as for mentioning the NATO in alphabetical order, that was another clue. This time concerning John as well as some more unsavory ex-soldiers, whose section of Jim Moriarty's web would all be explained later…)

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

They (Sherlock, John, Lestrade) told Molly about how cute and funny Jim from IT was really _Jim Moriarty,_ the criminal who blew up the old lady and kidnapped those people all as part of the game he made Sherlock play. They (John, Lestrade) asked her if she was alright, if Moriarty had done anything to her (they didn't specify, but she knew what they meant).

Molly acted shocked (which she was only an hour before), gasping at the appropriate times, as she sat across from the three men at her dining room table where she had earlier sat across from Jim Moriarty.

She told them she had no idea, and that Jim had just stopped by to apologize for lying to her about being gay, they had coffee, she forgave him, and he left. She had opened the window herself because the heat in her stuffy flat, combined with the coffee (and combined with the blushing embarrassment that she hadn't noticed that man she was dating was gay) had overheated her and so she needed some fresh air.

(Molly didn't mention anything about Jim Moriarty being Carl Powers, too, in addition to being an international criminal—about how Sherlock Holmes, the most genius detective in the world, had got that _wrong._ She didn't want to embarrass Sherlock, after all, or put the suspicion in his (or John's, or Lestrade's) mind that she was some sort of a confidant to Jim, which she actually wasn't.)

They (Sherlock, John Lestrade) nodded, solemnly and seemed to believe her story. The investigators stood taller than her seated, like watchtowers along a protective wall, but she knew better. They couldn't save her.

If Jim ever wanted her dead, she would be.

And so, Molly allowed the men to leave her, _alone,_ in her tiny flat without any police protection, locked the door behind them, _alone,_ and went back to bed, _alone._

But it was already four in the morning, and she knew that by now she wasn't going to get any sleep. Molly felt wide awake, body shaking, from the fight-or-flight reaction towards Jim Moriarty (and her midnight cup of coffee) and had not been able to calm down during her conversation with Sherlock, John and Lestrade.

Lights off in her bedroom, hidden deep under her covers, Molly Hooper cried.

Not the way she had cried when her father died with dry tears that she had been saving so long as she watched him waste away that they were no longer there by the time he died. Not the way she cried when she was teenager who thought she wasn't beautiful and that nobody would ever love her, with hidden tears that only she ever saw. And not the way she had cried in her twenties when she had broken up with her first serious boyfriend, even though she'd loved him and he'd loved her, because she knew they were incompatible and would never be happy together, these tears shared together with him.

No, Molly cried different tears this early morning._ New_ tears.

Tears that released the tension, fear, anger, embarrassment. Tears that grieved the loss of a_ possibility_—Jim from IT. Tears that fell not only for Jim (the boyfriend, the closeted gay man, _and _the criminal) but for Sherlock Holmes (who would never understand) and for the old blind woman and everyone on her floor that had been killed in the explosion.

There were so many tears (and mucus from her running nose) on the damp pillowcase that it seemed as if Molly was being bled dry, that soon there would be nothing of her left.

But that wasn't true.

Molly was strong and always getting stronger. It was at her lowest moments when she realized that because she had survived she would continue to.

_So what was the plan now? _

Now, in front of the bathroom mirror, splashing cold water onto her reddened face from the sink below, again and again, Molly listened to the water run as she thought. When she looked up at her own face, puffy eyed and pink nosed, she was ready.

Jim Moriarty had tricked _her._ Jim Moriarty had used_ her _to get to Sherlock. Jim Moriarty had let _her_ live.

Therefore, Jim Moriarty was_ her_ problem.

(Not the police's and not Sherlock's, he'd already been put through enough.)

And _she_ would solve it.

* * *

><p>(March, 2011)<p>

The next day after confronting Sherlock (and John) at the pool and visiting Molly at her flat (he'd gone out the window, right into window below he had paid the family downstairs to leave open just in case), Jim found himself in front of a white townhouse (the number '44' in black on its white greekesque pillar) in an expensive neighborhood of London. The residence of dominatrix Irene Adler, who had called him last night interrupting his plans to kill Sherlock (and John) all because Mary Morstan had a crush on the ex-soldier.

Jim rang the doorbell for thirty seconds (which was a long time while waiting in the early spring cold) before trying the doorknob and finding the door locked. Hands now in his suitpockets (the same navy blue suit as yesterday, he hadn't had time to go 'home' yet), Jim tensed his body to conserve heat (the material that made his clothes was expensive and high quality, but not very thick and so not very warm). Glancing up, he noticed a security-camera was watching him; the high-tech version of a peephole. One hand ventured out of his pocket and tried the doorbell again.

Finally, Jim heard the sounds of slapping footsteps approaching the door from inside. Then he heard, outside with him, a woman's voice from a little speaker next to the door. The woman's voice, however, was _not _the voice of Irene Adler whom he had spoken to on the phone the night before.

"Hello? Who is it?" the voice asked.

"You can't seriously not know who _I_ am." Jim replied, in mock offense because for many years he had made sure that most people did not know who he was. He returned his hand to his pocket and turned towards the camera, smiling up into it.

"You don't look familiar." The voice said, "I don't remember background checking you and your picture is not on the client list for today. What is your business here?"

"Mary Morstan." Jim stated.

"Oh? Mary?" the voice repeated, "So you're the one Miss Adler talked to last night. You shouted at her. Threatened her."

"Yeah, so?" Jim shrugged.

"Well people don't _threaten _Miss Adler." The voice answered, "Miss Adler threatens people. And she goes through with it, too. Why should I let you in if you've threatened her?"

"Because I have an appointment." Jim reasoned, "And it's cold out here." He breathed out white steam.

The voice allowed Jim to shiver outside for a few moments longer before unlocking the door, pulling it open and stepping aside so that he could enter.

Upon entering, Jim saw a redheaded woman in a black silk and shoulder-strapped nightgown _(sexy)_ and puffy red polka-dotted slippers _(not so _sexy, but still cute). She was pretty, but not Jim's 'type' since she had the same hair color as his mother and he could never sleep with a woman who looked like his mother (since that would make him like his no good absentee father).

"May I speak with the _woman _of the house now, please?" Jim asked, glancing around the hall. The bottom half of the walls were wooden, the top half were papered with off-white. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

"Upstairs." The redheaded woman nodded, "Follow me."

Jim followed her up the wood stairs that amazingly didn't creak, all the way down the hall to the master bedroom in which Irene Adler lay in wait on the kingsized bed, its white covers unmade. She was _not _alone. Another woman, naked, lay sleeping beside her.

Irene stood up. She was fully dressed in a dark green pantsuit. It was loose-fitting, because she was obviously fashion model (rib visible) skinny, yet despite this no skin but her unmade-up face and hands were showing. Her feet were covered with black socks and green flats.

_(Not_ sexy. _Very_ not sexy.)

Jim was unnerved.

_A fully dressed woman in nonsexy attire, without makeup, in a bedroom?! _

He wasn't used to this.

"Miss Adler, I presume…?" Jim began, determined not to be uncomfortable (which was obviously what Irene Alder wanted him to be as she was parading a woman in a nightgown and another woman naked in contrast to her covered form, "I'm Jim Moriarty. We spoke on the phone. Well, _you_ spoke._ I_ shouted."

"And threatened." The nightgown-clad woman added, folding her arms and glaring at him.

"Enough, Kate." Irene told her, strict like a boarding school headmistress, "You're dismissed."

"Yes, Miss Adler." The redhaired woman, now identified as Kate, obeyed. Bowing slightly, turning and exiting the bedroom. She shut the door behind her.

Jim glanced past Irene at the sleeping naked woman on the bed. "Shouldn't we do this somewhere else? So we don't wake her?"

"Oh, don't worry about that." Irene dismissed, also glancing over at the breathing body, "Gave her a little sleeping potion. It'll be a few more hours before she wakes up and runs home to mother."

"'Mother'?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mycroft Holmes." Irene grinned, "She's his PA—and that seems to be _all,_ surprisingly. She's here to spy on me, pretending to be a client. Of course she doesn't know_ I_ know that."

"Mycroft _Holmes…"_ Jim hummed, moving to lean against the dresser, "Any relation to—"

"Sherlock Holmes?" Irene completed, "Yes. His older brother. I hear you know him."

"Met him recently." Jim confirmed, casually, "Just had a nice chat with him by the pool. Intelligent. Great conversationalist. And _handsome,_ too, don't you think?"

Irene smiled.

"Not my type." She said.

"The short blond one, then?" Jim tried, slyly.

"_Men_ are not my type." Irene specified, pursing her lips in slight annoyance.

Jim smirked.

"I know." He said, "Even without the naked woman in your bed, the pantsuit and the lack of makeup kind of give it away."

Irene snorted. "It's not _my_ bed, it's the _client _bed—like the kind in a therapist's office, since I _am_ a therapist and this _is_ my office. And, by the way, I don't normally dress like this when I meet with clients."

"Oh?" Jim feigned surprise, "So you're _not_ tired of being sexually objectified, by your clients and by society, and_ aren't_ trying to avoid that by dressing like a man. _I see._ You usually use your sex appeal to your advantage when dealing with men, who don't hold the same power over _you_ since you're a lesbian. But for some reason you thought that wouldn't work on _me…"_

"Mary told me you were gay." Irene explained, "And your taste in clothing practically confirms it…_except _you've been wearing it a while, now, and haven't shaved in a few days. So either you're _bi_sexual, your mother—or your _girlfriend,_ if I want to be generous—dresses you, or you've been growing a beard in anticipation of going into hiding. I'm guessing it's the third, criminal like you."

Jim chuckled.

"Very good, Miss Adler, very good." He complimented, clapping sarcastically, "But having good taste doesn't mean I'm_ gay. _It just means I'm _rich._ You should know better." He gestured around at the expensive furnishings in the room. "Anyway, I didn't come here to admire the furniture," his eyes returned to the sleeping and naked woman on the bed, "I came here to find out the secret that will bring down the British Government."

"Well, it's not her." Irene groaned, motioning at Mycroft Holmes's personal assistant, "She's just the _bait._ So that leaves just one other then, doesn't it?"

"_Sherlock Holmes."_ Jim identified, "But you said you _had _the secret. I don't see a six foot tall consulting detective here, do you?"

"No, but I do have the bait." Irene explained, "And some very titillating photographs of her. Titillating enough for Mr. British Government to send his baby brother instead of his secret agents to recover the photos. And then, I will have Sherlock Holmes."

"Good plan." Jim admired, "How does it involve me?"

"You're good with numbers aren't you…?" Irene guessed, "Money is the motivator of most crime—save for yours and mine—and so running a criminal empire more expansive than the Roman must involve a lot of bookkeeping."

"When I was little, I always loved numbers." Jim recounted, "So orderly, predictable—it all made sense when the rest of the world felt so…_random_. But then I grew up and 'put away childish things'. Numbers are boring. Finding the complicated patterns in the _seemingly_ 'random' world, and then twisting them to _my_ fancy, is what makes life interesting." He closed his eyes and smiled, imagining himself as a puppeteer far above the stage below while the marionettes, their strings on crosses in his hands, _dance._

Irene eyed him, head cocked to one side.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself." She commented, "Thinking of Sherlock?"

"Always." Jim confirmed, opening his eyes and looking directly into her, "And yes, I'm good with numbers. What do you want me to do with them?"

"Come with me." Irene requested.

She led Jim back out of the master bedroom, back down the hall and down the stairs, into the sitting room. Its walls had golden designs, shiny against the soft blue wallpaper. The chairs and sofa were cream colored. The fireplace (never used) was a dark brown and above it hung a silver and gold framed mirror.

'_Mirror, mirror on the wall…who's the fairest of them all?' _

…not _Irene Alder_, apparently.

The mirror was hung too high for her (or her assistant Kate's) use, even in heels; only their heads would be visible in it, so useless to adjust an outfit or admire a body, and it would be too inconvenient and public to fix hair and makeup in the sitting room where guests and clients were entertained (when they weren't naked and asleep in the client room).

So why have a mirror there at all?

Just for show? Like the fireplace?

Or maybe _both_ were functional, just not for their perceived purpose.

"Have a seat." Irene instructed, gesturing to the sofa.

Jim passed it and sat down in the cubist armchair. (It had the deepest indentation in a single spot and so it had to be the one Irene regularly sat in.) He leaned back, crossing his legs in front of him and his arms behind his back.

"Comfy." He grinned, cheekily.

Irene rolled her eyes and went over to the mirror and fireplace. They indeed had a latent function beneath their false manifest.

There was a button under the top ridge of the fireplace that Irene pushed. It triggered whatever mechanism (probably a more advanced pulley-system) lifted the mirror to reveal the keypadded door to a safe built into the wall.

Whatever was locked inside must have been 'fairest of them all', to warrant such protection.

"Safe hidden in the wall? How Hollywood." Jim commented, "What's next? A bookshelf that's a secret door to another room?

"No." Irene smirked, turning to him, "But I do have a dungeon. Course that's for paying customers only." She turned back towards the safe, "Don't look." She made sure her baggy pantsuit blocked Jim's view of the combination.

The safe opened and she took whatever was inside out of, and then spun around on her flats to face Jim. Walking in his direction, she held out the item to him in one hand.

It was a black smartphone.

Jim raised an eyebrow. "Forgot your password and need the numbers guy to sort it out for you?"

"I change my password weekly—just in case." Irene stated, "And I always remember it." Proving her statement, she typed her phone's password in so quickly Jim could not memorize it himself. She then started scrolling through the data saved on it. "I don't use this phone for making calls, I use it as a library. It's where I keep all my dirty little secrets about my clients. For protection if one—or more—ever turned against me."

"You've got bad judgment about who to have as clients if you're worried about that." Jim criticized.

"Says the man who only works with criminals." Irene returned, scoffing, "Besides, you've just exposed a few of them unprovoked. They might just come after you now and you already gave away your protection."

Jim didn't tense at her words (which he knew may well be true). Instead, he smiled, and said "I always have 'protection'."

Irene didn't laugh at his joke. Instead, she held up the smartphone so that he could see the screen and said "Here, take a look and see what you can make of this."

"What is it?" Jim inquired, squinting at the numbers on the screen.

He reached out to take the phone, but Irene pulled it away. Only _she_ was allowed to touch it.

"We don't know." Irene admitted, "Kate copied it off an MI6 codebreaker's phone while he was…well, tied up."

"Codebreaker didn't have a password on his phone?" Jim scoffed, _"Sloppy."_

"Oh he did have a password." Irene corrected, "Kate solved it. It was 'BDSM'. Completely coincidental, I'm sure."

"And _creative,_ too." Jim added, rolling his eyes, "So why did ginger bother to take anything off the phone of such an idiot?"

"Because 'such an idiot' said he had just made a significant breakthrough in the war on terror." Irene replied, "He could've been lying, or trying to impress me, I know, but when your fetish is to be vulnerable, tortured and humiliated—like the terrorists his organization catches are—I don't think he was. Plus, I got him a little drunk beforehand."

"Bruce-Partington all over again." Jim connected, "Now that it turns out Sherlock's alive—at least for the time being—it was a wasted opportunity tossing the plans into the pool. Mary told you about that, didn't she?"

"Briefly." Irene responded, "It could've helped with Mycroft Holmes. He must have found out about his codebreaker's appointments with me, it's the only reason they would have stopped, and so sent his pretty PA to seduce me. It's a shame she's a spy, I like her."

"But how did you know who she was?" Jim questioned, "The information couldn't have been as easily tortured out of her as it was from the wage slave."

"It _wasn't_, but the wage slave also told me all about his boss, Mr. Holmes, and the fit PA he has a crush on." Irene stated, "He even had a picture he'd secretly taken of her on his phone. He'd installed a camera behind the mirror in the woman's toilets."

Jim grimaced. (He preferred not to think about women and toilets at the same time. (Or _men,_ for that matter, too, since when it was men and toilets, there was only one reason.))

"I know." Irene empathized, "And speaking of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, since we can't figure out what this information means, then they might be the only ones who can."

"Why do you want the code broken so badly?" Jim questioned, "Why this code?"

"Because it belongs to the government." Irene answered, "I have people from all over the world who want me dead, it's why I started acquiring secrets about my clients here. And if I have a secret of the government's, then I can get them to protect me."

"Or, they can have you assassinated." Jim added.

"Not if I demonstrate that I can and will tell their secret." Irene conditioned.

"So this isn't the only piece of government gossip you've got." Jim gathered, "What else do you have?"

Irene smiled, holding the phone close to her chest like a mother would hold her child.

"I can't tell you." she said, "But I will hire you do something you love."

"Oh? And what is that?" Jim inquired.

"Spy on Sherlock Holmes." Irene declared, "And his brother."

* * *

><p>(April, 2011—January 2012)<p>

There were such things as anonymous tips to the CIA. Especially when one hired other people to make them for one, so they could never be traced back to one.

That is what Charles Augustus Magnussen did.

He had learned of 'Mary Morstan' (as she was called now) from an employee of Irene Adler named Kate who he had blackmailed (after threatening to, and then actually exposing, the affair Adler was having with a famous author and his wife hadn't managed to get any information out of Adler) by threatening to tell her parents what she did for a living (they thought she was a Personal Assistant to someone important—which wasn't exactly untrue…).

He then made Kate tip off the CIA that Adler had helped 'Mary Morstan' escape them and change her identity.

This, much to the annoyance of Magnussen, did not lead to the capture of Mary.

Instead, it led to the CIA breaking into Irene Adler's home while Sherlock Holmes and John Watson happened to be there, Alder faking her death (twice), and Sherlock eventually cracking a code that Adler told to Jim Moriarty who told it Mycroft Holmes who told Sherlock that he had, inadvertently, told the terrorists that the British and American governments had cracked their code.

Oh well.

Back to the 'drawing board'.

The CIA and MI6 would have to form a new plan to defeat the terrorists and Charles Augustus Magnussen would have to form a new plan to blackmail (or 'own', as he called it) Mary Morstan.

That new plan was named Janine.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Molly remembered the first time she and Jim had kissed.

_"But the thing about Sherlock is that even though he's—" _

_She was talking, and then she saw Jim's face approaching hers faster than she could react. Lips touched, just a peck, and then he pulled away as quickly as he had drawn in. Just like a brave, but nervous, school boy testing out what it was like to kiss a girl._

_This was an experiment, Molly realized then. Jim was waiting for her reaction. _

_She gasped, at first, lifting two fingers to touch her now moistened lips. Surprised and caught off-guard, she tried to think of something to say. Was she flattered? Offended? Violated? __She didn't know. _

_Had she felt nothing...?_

_No. There was something. _

_The shiver came and then the blush. __Jim smiled, noticing it as soon as she did. _

_"Sorry," he apologized, still, "I was just tired of hearing about Sherlock Holmes. Had to shut you up somehow, so I figured 'why not do it nicely?'"_

_"It's alright." Molly accepted, "And sorry for blathering about Sherlock so much. Oh, and thank you for stopping me 'nicely'." She giggled. _

_"Your welcome." Jim replied._

_They were silent, for a moment, until Molly spoke. Her voice was timid, attempting to sound innocuous and offhanded as she awkwardly attempted her version of a 'come back to my place' request._

_"You know the coffee here's terrible. I have a better kind at my flat. Maybe, I could make us some..." _

It seemed like a strange thing to remember, considering who really was, but how could she forget? She had kissed the devil himself and survived unscathed. It was a scary feeling...but also a powerful one.

Power.

It wasn't something Molly was used to feeling she had and even now she better than to think she actually had it. It was dangerous to believe she was safe.

Still, just because she wasn't as powerful as Jim didn't mean she was_ weak._

She could, possibly, use their fake relationship to her advantage.

Normally, Molly would never pretend to have feelings for a man if she didn't, but since Jim had done the same to her (presumably) and was an international criminal, she figured she could make an exception just for him.

But if she was going to do this, she had to be_ careful._ Sometimes pretending to like someone ended up in actually liking that someone. Sometimes it ended up getting found out and having revenge enacted against one. Either way, it was _dangerous._ Especially with Jim Moriarty it was dangerous because _Jim_ was dangerous.

(—no, not 'Jim'. _Moriarty_—no, _Carl Powers_—_no, _Jim. Just Jim. She had met him with that name so any other name, including the one he claimed to have been born with as well as his criminal one, sounded strange even in her thoughts. When she imagined the face of the man she had gone on two dates with, who had been outed as 'gay' by Sherlock and who had come to scare her in her own home as the dangerous criminal, it was named 'Jim'.)

Molly knew better than to text or call Jim. He wouldn't answer and she didn't want to go about this so directly. If she obsessively tried to contact him, he would know something was 'up', he would probably think either the police or Sherlock were attempting to use her to get to him.

And Jim knew Molly Hooper was a good, moral person. He'd never believe she would have feelings for _him_ after knowing what he had done (and continued to do)—or, at least, have them without _denying_ them.

So she would have to 'play hard to get'...

...but the same time she would have to make Jim _want_ to 'get' her.

(She had a suspicion that it wouldn't be too hard to get Jim's attention and interest. He enjoyed Sherlock jumping from stone to stone across the criminal river to get to him. Molly was no Sherlock, but she was one of the three people who didn't work for Jim that he allowed to see his face (and hear his voice) and _live._ So that had to count for something.)

It was going to be difficult, of course, her plan.

_Difficult, _but not_ impossible. _And Molly decided that she was ready for the challenge; a welcome distraction from the repetitive work of autopsy (and the repetitive disinterest from Sherlock).

Now she just needed to find Jim.

* * *

><p>(May, 2012)<p>

Crime scene tape fenced in the small square in London, surrounded by streets and cars; a statue of an obscure historical figure no one remembered, bit of dying grass, some dog poop….but no _dead body. _

_Where was the dead body? _

Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes had taken a taxi here because Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard had promised him a _dead body!_

A police officer, in his traffic cone shaped uniform, pulled up the blue and white tape for Sherlock to disembark from the cab onto the traffic island indicating, "right this way, Mr. Holmes" before turning and walking away from the scene altogether, shedding his uniform and rushing across the street between honking cars.

By this point it was too late.

Mycroft Holmes stepped out from behind the statue of the obscure historical figure no one remembered and Sherlock groaned.

"Should have known this was fake." He complained, "A central location with hundreds of witnesses." He gestured at the passing cars and pedestrians, "Few could kill someone or dump a body here without being noticed. This case could have been fun…instead it's just _you." _

"I'll bring you a corpse next time, then." Mycroft replied.

"Only if it's yours." Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft chuckled, rolling his eyes. Sherlock smirked to himself.

"Enough with the 'pleasantries', on to business." Mycroft continued, resting his weight partially on the umbrella he carried even when there was no threat of rain, "You've become _famous,_ Sherlock."

"Yes." Sherlock confirmed, "It's mildly annoying."

"No, you love it." Mycroft countered, "The attention, appreciation, the admiration…it makes up for your primary school days. And your secondary school and university ones, too…Isn't that what you've always secretly longed for? To be _loved?"_

"I love the game." Sherlock disagreed, "Spectators or none, it doesn't matter. I don't care what others think of me. The only possible exception would be recognition by a worthy mind."

"You mean _opponent."_ Mycroft specified.

"No, I _don't."_ Sherlock stated, firmly, "And I don't mean _you."_

"That's because we know that will never happen." Mycroft smiled, "But if not me, then _who? _There are limited options. _Irene Adler,_ perhaps…?"

"I don't think she's capable of giving me recognition, even if she were a worthy mind, seeing as she is dead." Sherlock reminded. (He wondered if Mycroft suspected that Irene had faked her death a second time..._and that Sherlock had helped.)_

"Then there is only one person left." Mycroft declared, matter-of-factly but with an edge of nervousness.

"You didn't create a false murder investigation to get me here just to talk about John, did you?" Sherlock asked, taken aback.

"_John?"_ Mycroft repeated, equally taken aback, "I said _'opponent'." _

"But all _I_ said was 'worthy mind'." Sherlock returned.

"Worthy mind?" Mycroft scoffed, "John Watson follows you around like a loyal dog while you call him various synonyms of the word 'stupid'."

"Yes." Sherlock affirmed, "And he is the only one who genuinely recognizes my intellect _without_ wanting to 'do' or outdo me—or _both._ A worthy mind indeed." He paused, listening to the hum of the city on all sides of him, "…But you were thinking of Moriarty. Why?"

"You've no doubt seen the articles in that gossip paper." Mycroft assumed.

"You know I don't follow the news unless it's interesting." Sherlock reminded, "And most of it's _not._ Aside from Carl Powers all those years ago, there hasn't been much that _is." _

"You think of_ yourself_ as interesting." Mycroft responded, snidely, "And a 'childhood friend' named Richard Brook has said a lot about you." Out of the inside pocket of his suitjacket he pulled a newspaper, tossing it to Sherlock and continuing once his brother had caught it, "Looks familiar, doesn't he?"

Sherlock eyed the paper in his hands. Next to the article was a photograph of James Moriarty. Sherlock's eyes returned to the text.

"Mother and father know better than to answer any questions about either of us—" he began, only to be interrupted by his brother.

Sherlock crumpled the newspaper and tossed it onto the cobblestone path. It landed at his feet and so he kicked it towards Mycroft. Mycroft glanced down at his, his dominant food moving slightly but then resisting the temptation and so staying planted.

"It wasn't them." Mycroft admitted, "It was me." He stabbed the ball of crumpled paper with the point of his umbrella.

"The only reason you'd relive the boring and humiliating waste of time that was our childhood for Moriarty's benefit would be in exchange for all details of his Criminal Network." Sherlock reasoned, "It makes sense that Moriarty would want to make that trade, since he revealed pieces of network already to me, and so at least some of them must want to kill him. The British Government dismantling his network might save his life…But you haven't done that yet because you're waiting for them to kill him, and they haven't killed him yet because…?" he stopped, not knowing the end of the statement.

"Because they want the keycode, of course." Mycroft completed, chortling as if the answer was obvious (which it _was(_—to him)) "They saw Moriarty break into the Bank of England, Pentonville prison, and the Tower of London. Now they want the same power."

"You haven't fallen for that trick, have you?" Sherlock checked. He was too computer-savvy to believe a short, single code could hack into three unrelated and very powerful security system simultaneously (perhaps a more complicated virus developed by a genius _could,_ however…), "Moriarty broke into my flat to inform me of it—under the guise of gloating and threatening me, to keep up appearances—when he all really wanted was to establish that the two of us are in league and to make network think I have the code—perhaps even that I created it myself. That way, the public believes _I _paid 'Richard Brook' and his former associates come after _me _instead of tracking him down and killing him."

Sherlock laughed at this, appreciating the complicated plan and finding humor in the silly little people who were fooled—and in the fact that Moriarty believed that Sherlock was one of them.

Mycroft did not laugh.

"So you must understand how Moriarty plans to end this, then." Mycroft stated, seriously. His face was emotionlessness except for the blue eyes that betrayed his constant worry for his little brother.

"Moriarty wants to stay alive by becoming Richard Brook." Sherlock began, "The only way he can truly live in safety as his new identity is if there is absolutely no question that he isn't Moriarty—that James Moriarty never even _existed._ In order to prove that he must to prove that_ I_ never existed. Or, at least, my_ genius_ never did. If my skills and solved cases are deemed fraudulent, then so would my enemy James Moriarty. Very few people in his network interact with him directly and they don't interact with each other. If he makes everyone think_ I'm_ the one behind all of his crimes…then all he has to do is get_ me _killed—_or make me kill myself_—either way making his Criminal Network believe that the one responsible for exposing them is dead, meaning they can go slink back into whatever sewers they crawled out of and leave 'Richard Brook' alone."

"Very good." Mycroft acknowledged, "You_ almost_ don't need me anymore, little brother."

"I _don't."_ Sherlock declared, matter-of-factly (and a bit obstinately, too).

"Yes, you do." Mycroft insisted, with a smirk, "That is, if you're faking your suicide to escape Moriarty's plan."

"You only want to help me with that so that I'll track down Moriarty's network for you because you're too lazy to do it yourself." Sherlock said, "And I suppose I have to find and capture Moriarty myself, too, and make him confess so that I can eventually return from the dead as an innocent man."

"We cannot recapture him and cannot be those responsible for killing him." Mycroft countered, "There is a man who wants him alive that has the ability to bribe those above me into setting Moriarty free and so I don't believe it would be wise for _us _to cross him—although I'd have no ill will towards someone else stupid enough to take the risk that. You and I can find enough evidence on our own to prove you innocent. After all you have many satisfied customers."

"Alright." Sherlock nodded, "I'd ask who it is compelled you to release Moriarty but I know you won't tell me anyway and I don't actually care. So, now that we've worked out our plan to outsmart Moriarty I'm going to go find a real case to solve before dark. This was a nice seven minutes." He turned to walk away, already reaching for the police tape.

"Sherlock." Mycroft called after him. Sherlock stopped, but didn't turn back around. "You do know that John Watson can't be involved in any of this. He can't know."

Sherlock turned around.

"You want me to lie to him?" he asked.

"Since when did lying to people bother you?" Mycroft returned.

"John isn't _'people'."_ Sherlock qualified, "John is…"

"Your best friend." Mycroft stated, "And how would it look if your best friend and flatmate wasn't grieving after your supposed death? It would give our plan away."

"John can act." Sherlock tried.

"But he won't _want to,_ will he?" Mycroft countered, "What he would want to do is help you unravel Moriarty's network and clear your name. But it would be too suspicious if he went missing right after you died. He's too honorable, toomoral for this plan—both of those adjectives being two of the various synonyms for the word 'stupid'."

"No." Sherlock snapped.

"No?" Mycroft inquired, eyebrow raised.

"No." Sherlock repeated, "You're not allowed to call John stupid. Only I am."

"I see…" Mycroft accepted.

"But, yes," Sherlock agreed, "he is stupid."

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Before the police came, the thirty gunmen from all over the world had quickly exited the pool where employer Jim Moriarty had confronted target Sherlock Holmes and split up so as not to be found when they heard the approaching sirens.

Splitting up was _not_ 'scientific'. Countrymen did not run away with fellow countrymen in an orderly fashion. Instead, everyone rushed off in random directions through the alleys and streets of London.

Four gunmen, one from each of the four criminal organizations in the four countries Moriarty had hired from, happened to hide in the same parking garage. After a tense twenty minutes of silence, listening to the sirens and the footsteps, the men decided they were safe.

They also decided that James 'Jim' Moriarty, who they had all finally seen in person, had "thrown them under the bus" (or whatever equivalent phrase from their native languages) when revealing himself, and so his Criminal Network, to Sherlock Holmes. And when they returned home to their original countries, they shared this opinion to the bosses of the respective criminal organizations they were part of. The bosses agreed.

Now no longer their employer, Jim Moriarty was their enemy.

And Jim Moriarty soon, after working out the details of his and Irene Adler's plan and leaving her townhouse, received a 'message' from these bosses. The message was_ not_ a verbal one.

He had just exited the cab in front of the London hotel he was currently staying in (he switched every week to maintain secrecy and safety) when he felt a powerful, concentrated gust of wind blow past his cheek and then the sound of metal piercing plastic and then metal.

A bullet.

From a sniper using a silencer.

"She has a bomb!" Jim shouted, pointing at a random woman wearing a long and heavy brown coat because it was still chilly in early April. Her very pregnant belly, covered by the coat and held by one arm, looked convincing enough.

Everyone in the immediate area who had heard his voice burst into panic. Concierges dropped guests' bags and abandoned their trolleys, running inside the sliding doors of the hotel along with the guests. Every mobilephone in vicinity was quickly retrieved to call police . The woman accused began screaming in protest, running towards the sliding doors as they were already being barred shut against her.

With the authorities on their way, the shooter could not continue shooting at Jim and would have to flee the hotel before he was caught with an illegal rifle at the scene of a bomb scare.

After creating the hysteria, Jim spun around and dove back into the taxicab, pulling the door closed behind him. Lying on the floor of the backseat, he could see the bullet hole in the other door.

"What the hell?!" the cab driver shouted at him.

"Drive!" Jim ordered, just in case the poorly-aimed shooter was stupid enough to make another attempt in the precious few moments he had until the cops arrived, "I'll pay double."

Shrugging, the bearded cab driver drove away from the curb in front of the hotel with the same passenger that had told him to let him off there on the floor in the back. _Another crazy one_, the driver thought to himself, glad for the divider between himself and the passenger.

When the taxi was far enough away from the hotel, but slowed down in traffic, Jim jumped back out without paying. He jogged away from the cab, across the street and into an office building, knowing the driver couldn't chase him (skinny, but frail without much muscle mass and poor circulation because he sat down driving all day).

Inside the shabby lobby of the office building (rentable space, many empty rooms according to the registry on the wall, no front desk or receptionist) Jim sat down on the lone bench in front of the lift to think.

The only reason someone would be shooting at him is because they knew who he was. Until he had shown his face to Sherlock at the pool the night before, _nobody _(well, _mostly_ nobody) had known who he was. Before then, he was just another random, forgettable 'face in the crowd'.

He knew it wasn't Sherlock Holmes shooting at him from afar (he liked things up close and personal), and it wasn't someone hired by Mycroft Holmes either since he would never have someone killed so publicly. It could have been John Watson, though, except for the fact that John didn't use a sniper rifle or a silencer (and he wouldn't have missed). It also could have been Mary Morstan, maybe, except she had no reason to try to kill Jim after she had just set him up to work with her friend Irene (and she wouldn't have missed).

So that left one (or more) of the thirty gunmen Jim had hired to scare (impress) Sherlock who wanted him dead for revealing himself as the criminal mastermind he was, and so them as the criminal _ordinary_minds they were.

Irene Adler was right.

And Jim had known that she was. He had anticipated that this might happen. _Just not so quickly…_

He had to hide. (And he needed new clothes since his were in the hotel under false bomb threat and a real sniper threat.)

There was only one person he could trust to go to for help.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Meanwhile, no longer crying in bed inside her small flat on the sixteenth floor, Molly Hooper walked through the empty and darkened halls of the Hickman Gallery. She had snuck in an unlocked side door by the dumpster (just like Sherlock would have _(actually had_ when on the case)) was closed due to the forged 'Lost Vermeer' scandal uncovered by Sherlock Holmes and the formerly mysterious bomber—now exposed as James Moriarty (and her ex-boyfriend) by John Watson's blog.

Also on his blog was the paragraph: "_The curator admitted that she'd arranged for the painting to be created. She'd been put in touch with various people and they'd all seemed to be working for one man. You've guessed it. Moriarty."_

From this, Molly knew that the curator of this gallery had some way of contacting Jim.

Molly easily found the curator's office, labeled Sofie Wenceslas, because it was the only lit room in the building. The door was ajar and Molly peered in.

Molly, who had dressed up in a purple blouse (which she had bought after seeing Sherlock in his tight purple shirt) tucked into a black skirt for this meeting to make herself seem more official, found the older woman in sweatpants and a t-shirt with her hair in a messy ponytail. Her makeup-less face looked far more dysphoric than the suppressed tears in her eyes indicated. She was packing the things in her office into cardboard boxes.

Miss Wenceslas finally noticed the younger woman standing at the crack in the doorway when she glanced up from the open drawer of her desk.

"Police?" she asked, bitter and defeated, "Here to arrest me?" Molly didn't recognize her accent.

"No." Molly shook her head, "May I come in?"

"Nothing's stopping you and I won't bother asking how you broke in, it seems people can just do that here." Wenceslas sighed. She sank into her swivel chair, "But I'm not answering any questions from the press."

Molly pushed the door opened and stepped, cautiously, into the office. She smiled but Wenceslas didn't smile back.

"I'm not a reporter." Molly replied, "I just have one question to ask. How did you get in contact with Moriarty?"

"I never met him, I never even spoke to him." Wenceslas stated, "So if you work for him, you can tell him I know nothing about him so I have nothing to tell to police."

"I don't work for him!" Molly exclaimed, in shock and offense, before quickly calming herself down to professionalism, "And he wouldn't send anyone anyway if what you said is true. Besides, I don't really want information about Moriarty himself or anything. I just want to know how you heard of him, who told you about him and gave you a way to communicate with him?"

At that Wenceslas finally smiled. It was a happy one, at first, there were fond memories of a summer in Prague…but then it was a _crue_l one; revenge for the heartbreak of an unwitting affair.

"His name is August Moran." She declared, "Yes. _That _August Moran. The one from the House of Lords. He knows Moriarty and many other criminals. If you're looking for Moriarty, go to him."

"Okay." Molly agreed, with a nod, "I will."

* * *

><p>…<strong>Yeah, uh…sorry about the lack of Jim and Molly interaction. But this chapter sets it up for next chapter where it will happen.<strong>

**Moran's first name is August because Sebastian Moran's father was named Augustus but Charles Augustus Magnussen is already using Augustus and were not doing the two people same name thing again. **

**Does this mean there will be a **_**Sebastian**_** Moran? Yes. But later. **

**And I'm just warning you this story is going to be complicated. Maybe even too complicated for me. lol. **

**Please review! **


	4. Rub A Dub Dub

**Hi everyone! SORRY FOR THE WAIT! Thank you so much for reading so far and for all the wonderful and supportive reviews! **

**Many thanks to ****laal ratty**** one of my native consultants for my fics. **

**And thanks to GoogleMaps, the British Government's websites, and the Youtube videos posted by Department for International Development in which you can see Big Ben from the window of their apparently two different offices, at least one of them too close for it to be located in the address given on the website. (Not that that adds to the story in anyway.) **

**Explanation of this chapter's title: 'Three Men In A Tub', is from "Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub". For the purpose of this story, a tub is a metaphor for a drug gang. **

**I know some people said it was confusing, the nonlinear format, while others liked it. Sorry if it's confusing. There's basically only two timelines, though, so far…**

**Timeline A-**** 2011, Molly and Jim meet and date, Mary comes to the UK, Jim hires Mary, Jim confronts Sherlock, Mary calls Irene, Jim visits Molly, Jim meets with Irene, Jim gets shot at.**

**Timeline B-**** 2012, Jim is interrogated by Mycroft's men, Jim gets released because of Mr. Banks, Jim goes to visit Magnussen, Jim makes a plan to fake his death and make Sherlock fake his death, Sherlock and Mycroft make a plan to fake Sherlock's death, Jim and Sherlock fake their deaths. **

**This chapter introduces ****Timeline C,**** which begins 2010 and overlaps into 2011, and later goes all the way back to 2008 (but don't worry about 2008 just yet and also don't worry about the 1990's and early 2000's which will be ****Timeline D ****when Carl Power's transformation into Jim Moriarty yet, either). **

**Would it help if I added which timeline the section of a chapter is part of? So like instead of (June, 2012) it would be (Timeline B: June, 2012)? **

**And also, avoid confusion (for readers…and for myself), let me list the plot so far…**

**-Jim's Criminal Network wants to kill him. Sherlock and Mycroft want to capture Jim. Jim wants to live so he has to fake his death to get away from Criminal Network, Sherlock and Mycroft. He makes Sherlock fake Sherlock's death as a distraction for Sherlock and Mycroft so that they don't realize that Jim faked his own death. Once his death is faked, the Criminal Network is no longer trying to kill Jim and Mycroft and Sherlock are no longer trying to capture Jim. Jim is safe. **

**-Magnussen wants information about government activities just because he likes having dirt on the powerful. He wants to go to Mycroft's secret meetings. He attempted to blackmail Lord Moran into letting him into Mycroft's meetings by threatening to give Jim to Mycroft, but Lord Moran instead gives Jim to Mycroft himself. In retaliation Magnussen then told Mr. Banks that Jim was Carl Powers and alive, causing Mr. Banks to get Jim out of Mycroft's prison. Jim agrees to give Magnussen information about Sherlock in exchange for having it published. Magnussen wants this information to have power over Mycroft. Unrelatedly, Magnussen is also trying to blackmail Mary Morstan for no reason except that he likes to creep on women. **

**-Lord Moran helped Carl Powers fake his death to get away from Mr. Banks who wants him dead. He is a parliamentary lord and Minister of Overseas Development (which I think is actually called International Development, but I see why the creators didn't want to slander the department). As part of Jim's plan, Lord Moran turned Jim in to Mycroft. He attended Mycroft's meetings but gets barred from attending once Mr. Banks frees Jim from Mycroft's prison. He smuggles in western goods to communist North Korea and China via diplomatic trips to make extra money, meaning he works with gangs as well as the North Korean and Chinese governments, however he doesn't directly sponsor or condone violence. **

**-Mr. Banks is the tall gray haired man at the end of The Hounds of Baskerville. Mr. Banks is not his real name but he is some sort of a banker, and it's the name he uses for his investments so they can't be connected to his real identity. For reasons later to be revealed he wanted Carl Powers dead and told Lord Moran to kill him in exchange for campaign money that got Lord Moran elected as an MP and later appointed to the House of Lords. For years he believes that Carl Powers died. Magnussen informs him that this is not true and so Mr. Banks sets out to get revenge on Lord Moran and Carl Powers, now known as Jim. **

**-Mary Morstan is the ex-CIA assassin's new name, with help from Irene Adler she came to hide in the UK from the CIA and other enemies. She has a crush on John so calls Irene to stop Jim from killing John (and Sherlock). Magnussen is trying to blackmail her and in a failed attempt ends up getting the CIA to storm Irene's house. **

**-Irene learns of Sherlock and Jim from Mary. She wants to decode some stolen government information so she can make the government protect her in case anyone comes after her. She needs Sherlock to do it because he's the only one smart enough. She gets Jim to get her information on Sherlock and Mycroft, so she can use it to get close enough to Sherlock that he'll decode the information. The CIA storms her house looking for Mary and whatever CIA information Mary may have given Irene. **

**-Molly wants to stop Jim and protect Sherlock from him, winning Sherlock's admiration and affection. She's not sure how she's going to do that, especially because she still sort of likes Jim, too. **

**Also because it was called the Ministry of Overseas Development in the TV show, that's what the story will use and there is of course no connection to the** **Department for International Development who I'm sure is staffed by very noncriminal people regardless of their political affiliations. Still, for convenience sake, it'll have the same office location not that I'll bother to write the address anyway…**

**This chapter will introduce three new players to the game, who will be summarized in the after-chapter A/N. I think they (and later Jim's mother) will be the last ones, other than the usual subjects like Kitty Riley, the assassins, the gunmen and Tom, who are all from the show and will happen later. **

**Now to find out who they are and also how Molly confronts Jim. **

**Sorry for the long author's note. Hope you like this chapter!**

* * *

><p>"I'll see you at the Fox. About sixish?"<p>

* * *

><p>(December, 2010)<p>

London was a beautiful city. Constantly moving, constantly updating; incorporating modernity around its historic architecture and sites. And snow covered, it looked timeless.

It had changed since Jim Moriarty (Carl Powers) had first been here in 1989 for a swimming competition (and then later, _secretly,_ for the second time when he was seventeen). Jim had respectfully avoided the city—and all of England—for so long on (paranoid and protective) Lord Moran's request, but over twenty years had passed since he had had to go into hiding and so he figured it was safe now.

However, it was not London's beauty and history that brought Jim to London this winter (nor was it a swimming competition or the futile search for his father).

It was Christmas.

(Well, Christmas _Eve,_ anyway.)

Jim wasn't religious and he wasn't festive…but he _was_ the reason Lord Moran spent the holidays alone (every year since Jim's second time in London), without his ex_-_wife and estranged son, and so Jim thought that this year instead of pretending December 24th was just another day of the month (or visiting his estranged mother) he might just try to cheer the old (middle-aged) man up. He hadn't been invited, or even hinted at, to come but he didn't care.

August Moran had a nice townhouse in an expensive neighborhood of London where he stayed when in the city on parliamentary business. When not in the city, he was usually in East Asia on diplomatic (and other illegal) business. (He also used to have a house in the north of England where his ex-wife lived and worked, but she owned it now after winning it in the divorce.)

(Not) surprisingly, when Jim knocked on the door to the nice townhouse in the expensive neighborhood Lord Moran did not answer and continued not to answer when Jim called his home, mobile and work phones. Lord Moran must have gone to somewhere people didn't celebrate Christmas like he usually did.

This year, though, Moran had mentioned to Jim that his soldier son might be visiting for the first time since the divorce this Christmas after getting back from Afghanistan alive. Those plans obviously had changed.

(Too bad… Jim was looking forward to crashing the reunion and meeting the _real_ son of the man he used to wish was his real father.)

So Jim turned back around, fashion-over-function peacoat wrapped around him, and left the stone doorstep. Past the miniature lawn and back on the pavement by the roadway, Jim decided that he would suffer the cold and walk since (what seemed like) the only cabbie working on Christmas Eve, who had dropped him off in front of Lord Moran's townhouse, had attempted kill him with an experimental drug from a study and a cigarette lighter built like a gun.

Five streets down, and still a few away from the nearest Tube station, shivering Jim was about to change his mind and call the cabbie (they had exchanged numbers when Jim had paid him not to make him another 'serial suicide' victim)…

…when he looked up from the his clean shoes and the blackened splattered gum on the pavement, to see three tall men surrounding and confronting a fourth man.

The three men were not only taller and a few years younger than the fourth man, but the fourth man held a cane. _A cane!_ Three tall men were threatening a short, older, _crippled_ man!

Jim proudly admitted his lack of sympathy and empathy, both to himself and whoever happened to ask, but today was Christmas Eve and what was more in the spirit than watching the bigger bullies beat up on the little guy?

"Look, John." The ruddy-haired, square-faced man asserted, "We got you the gun you asked for, now it's time you help_ us_ in return."

"I already told you," the short, blond man apparently named 'John' countered, "I'm not interested and I _don't _want to be involved. I learned my lesson the last time back in Afghanistan. So thank you for the gun, I'll pay you if that's what you want, but I'm d_one _with this drug scheme." He attempted to step around the man in front of him, but Ruddy moved to block him. "I'll remind you that I do have that gun with me now." John added.

_So…what was this? _Jim wondered, watching the scene intently while he pretended to check his phone.

"We know you need the money." The tawny-haired, oval-faced man said, "Look at you. You can't hold a job, you've got a shit pension—_you're barely getting by!_ You'll get rich with us."

Behind John, he John by the shoulder pads of his black jacket to keep him from walking away. John shook him off and so Tawny held him in place with two hands.

John turned to the third man; hair chestnut and shaggy, face angular—the youngest of the three by five to ten years.

_"You_ have anything to say?" he asked him.

Chestnut shook his head, silently.

"Thought not." John snorted, shaking his head knowingly. He turned back to Ruddy in front of him, and pushed him away with his cane before ducking out of Tawny's grasp.

The two men quickly reached out to grab him again, but before they could Chestnut was pointing at something. _Someone._

Jim.

Tawny and Ruddy turned to stare at Jim who looked up 'confusedly' from his phone, pretending to have just noticed them for the first time.

"What're you looking at?" Tawny demanded, "Walk away. _Now."_

"No." Ruddy disagreed, "He might have taken our picture or filmed us on his phone. We can't let him go."

The three men began to approach Jim. Jim met the men halfway in the center of the pavement, a busy street on one side and a busy storefront on the other where customers were doing some last minute Christmas shopping. Too many witnesses for anything…_too bad_ to happen (here, at least).

Meanwhile, this allowed John to hurry away (not limping) in the opposite direction, already dialing the police on his mobile. He went back into the almost empty pub where he had met up with his sister Harry for the first time since returning to England.

Ruddy, Tawny and Chestnut stood before Jim. Now_ Jim_ felt short, though by less than John must have felt.

Ruddy wore a black turtleneck and shoes, and a brown jacket and pants. Tawny wore a black leather jacket, a green plaid shirt, and jeans. Chestnut wore dramatically all black, jacket, buttondown and pants (Jim decided that along with the not talking, and being the youngest, Chestnut must have been still in his emo faze).

Drastically different than the three men, Jim stood out wearing a red shirt and a green suit, under his black peacoat, to partake in the Christmas season.

"Give me the phone." Ruddy 'politely requested', a forced smile on his face with the slight turn of his head. He held out his hand.

"Phone?" Jim laughed, "And here I thought you 'tough guys' just wanted my lunch money."

Ruddy widened, his smile at the joke; insincere and vicious like the teeth shark. Jim tried to match it, but his mouth wasn't big enough.

Tawny didn't smile. He raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" he sneered. It was a close as he could get to a false smile.

He stepped closer to Jim, looking down at him menacingly. He clamped his hand on the side of Jim's arm, holding Jim still so he could pull the mobilephone from Jim's fingers. He then stepped back and was already building the momentum throw it down onto the pavement and step on it when Ruddy stopped him with the gesture of a hand.

Chestnut was staring intently at the phone in Jim's hand.

Jim, Ruddy and Tawny all turned towards him. His face was expressionless but his lips were slightly parting as if he wanted to speak.

"Go on." Ruddy encouraged.

"…That's a Japanese phone." Chestnut stated, not even glancing up from the mobile, "That model isn't allowed out of Japan; none of the new technology ever is. So how does he have that phone?"

"Yes," Ruddy agreed, then looking back at Jim, "How do you have that phone?"

Jim smirked. He was surprised that someone had recognized his phone, a gift from Lord Moran, and indeed restricted and so smuggled technology.

"The real question is…" he redirected, "…how are you going to sell all the heroin you've smuggled here?" and then cherished the looks of surprise on the three men's faces.

"You're a good listener." Ruddy complemented, "Smart, too. John walks with a limp and said 'Afghanistan', so _soldier. _My associate said he could make John 'rich', so _drugs."_

"Lucky guess." Tawny dismissed, rolling his eyes.

"Which_ you've_ just confirmed as correct by saying so." Ruddy reminded, matter-of-factly.

Tawny scowled.

"Does your associate have a name?" Jim asked, "Do any of you have names?"

"What's it to you?" Tawny snapped.

"Well, if I'm going to help you boys sell your drugs, I should at least have something to call you." Jim reasoned, "I know it won't be your real names, of course, but something."

"Charlie." Ruddy—now known as 'Charlie'—declared, "Pleasure to meet you." He smiled and extended a hand to shake.

Jim took it and Charlie's handshake was overly firm but not overly enthusiastic; practiced and powerful. His hands were too soft, though, for him to be a soldier like the limping John who the three men had been trying to pressgang into their wannabe drug cartel.

"And them?" Jim followed-up, after Charlie had released his hand, turning to Tawny and Chestnut.

"Victor." Tawny—now known as 'Victor'—admitted, grudgingly, "And that's Romeo." he gestured to Chestnut—now known as 'Romeo'—who stood in silence beside him, "He doesn't talk much."

Romeo nodded in quiet agreement with that particular statement, confirming it.

"The NATO alphabet." Jim recognized, "Not very creative with codenames, are we?"

"We didn't choose them." Victor said, shrugging.

"So you've got a boss then." Jim gathered.

"Yes." Charlie confirmed, with a nod, _"Papa."_

Jim chuckled.

"Wonder who that is…" he mused, idly imagining a fat old man behind a desk, he then moved on to "Does _John_ have a codename?"

"John didn't_ want _a codename." Charlie replied, "As you already witnessed, John did not want to be a part of our…_organization."_

"And what exactly _is_ your organization?" Jim questioned, "You've got military-inspired names but you're not soldiers and you're not ordinary drug smugglers, either, since you haven't been able to break into the business yet. I think you three are undercover. Spies, maybe even." He smirked again.

"And_ I_ think you're full of it." Victor snorted.

"_I_ think he's _smart."_ Charlie countered, "He could be useful." He then asked Jim, "What is your name? Who do you work for?"

"James Moriarty." Jim stated, "Call me 'Jim'. I work for myself, primarily…but I do rent myself out to whoever asks the nicest…" He winked. "I'm the only consulting criminal in the world. I help people like you do things like you want to do. You should feel flattered, seeing my face. Not very many get the pleasure."

Victor rolled his eyes again.

"He's crazy." He said, "Let's off him and be done with it." He reached into the pocket of leather jacket for what was presumably a gun.

Charlie raised an arm in front of the pocket to once again stop him. He sighed.

"I apologize for Victor's temper." He told Jim, "But don't take it personally. There aren't many people he _doesn't_ want to kill."

"The world gives me a headache." Victor shrugged. He elbowed Romeo, "You, too. Right?"

Romeo nodded.

"Romeo is a rare exception to Victor's misanthropy." Charlie smiled, "I, unluckily, am not. And _you_ won't be either, James. So when you work with us you'll have to be careful of him. Even I must."

"So you are going to consult me on your crime." Jim responded, then adding, "…And it's 'Jim'—not 'James'. James sounds too formal. To _English."_

"My mistake." Charlie accepted, "But before we decide whether we'll hire you to be our…what did you call it, again? Consulting criminal? You'll have to prove that you can actually help."

"Alright." Jim agreed, "Follow me."

He reached into Victor's hand, gently retrieving his Japanese mobilephone. Once he had it, he dialed the number of the cabbie he'd met that morning.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

A half hour after the private Hickman gallery where she had met Sofie Wenceslas and down the street from the National Gallery, Molly Hooper emerged from the tube station and walked the less than five minutes across and down the busy street to the gray stone and brown-orange brick building in which the London office of the Ministry of Overseas Development was located. Behind it was the old Admiralty House.

Once standing at the doors, Molly pulled out her mobilephone. She dialed the number she'd found online and had already made a contact in her phone. She held the phone to her ear.

A woman's voice answered. She had a slight West African accent, underneath the practiced proper English.

"Office of Overseas Development. How may I direct your call?"

"Hello, um, I'd like to speak to Mr—_Lord _August Moran. Minister of Overseas Development, please."

"I'm afraid he doesn't take calls at this number. What is your reason for calling?"

"Carl Powers."

"Excuse me?"

"_Carl Powers._ Tell him I know about Carl Powers."

"Sorry, _who?" _

"Just tell him I said that name, please...He will know who I'm talking about."

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to disconnect this call now. Goodbye."

Molly lowered her mobile when the line cut off.

Then she waited.

A car honked in the street, a red bus pulled up to the curb. Pedestrians on the pavement pushed past her for standing too long in the same spot.

The phone rang; one of the pre-programmed, beeping melodies.

Molly clicked the touchscreen and lifted it back to her ear.

A man's voice answered. He had a slight…Irish accent, beneath the practiced proper English.

(It actually reminded her of Jim Moriarty's…except _opposite.)_

"Hello?"

"Hello? Who's this?"

"August Moran. Please come to meet me in my office. Do you know where it is?"

"Yeah, I do, I'm outside the building right now."

"Come in, then. My assistant will be waiting for you in the lobby."

"Okay."

The phone once again disconnected. Molly put it back into the little black purse she used for special occasions, smoothed her top and skirt under her Sherlock-inspired longcoat, and opened the doubledoors to the building.

Up three flights of stairs, before opening the door to the third floor, the same braid-haired assistant in the plain black dress who had originally answered the phone stopped Molly.

"I have to search." She stated, "Just in case. There's always the threat of terrorism, even at our department."

"Okay." Molly allowed.

She stretched out her arms the way she'd seen criminals do in the movies. Their weapons never seemed to be found. Of course, Molly hadn't actually brought any weapons…

The assistant checked Molly's coat pockets and then moved to check her blouse, skirt and gray knit-tights.

"Excuse me, but this isn't something normally done, is it?" Molly questioned, tensing in awkward discomfort.

"I'm sorry." The assistant apologized, "But Lord Moran doesn't trust you after what you said. He's not sure what you want. He wants to make sure you're not wearing a wire."

"I'm not." Molly asserted, "…but I suppose you'll have to check anyway…"

A few minutes later, Molly was cleared to enter Lord August Moran's office. The assistant returned to her cubicle in front of the door to the office after opening it for Molly and allowing her in.

With most offices, the desk and the person sitting in it was the centerpiece of the room, while the supplemental bookshelves and pictures on the wall were only for decoration. But in_ this_ office, it was _different._

There were at least ten framed photographs on the white walls and propped on the brown bookshelf of the man at the brown desk (presumably August Moran) in the developing world; he was sitting in on a school for girls in India, he was in a South Korean hospital bonding with the elderly, he was delivering food to Tsunami victims in Thailand, he was rebuilding a home destroyed by a bomb in Iraq.

There were also just as many framed photographs (mostly National Geographic, some that Molly even recognized) of poorer countries that didn't include the lord (enough that he didn't seem vain); vine-covered Mayan ruins and tattoo-covered rainforest dwellers, skinny South African nomads and a miniature Igbo mask, a rural Chinese village and terracotta soldiers, a desert mosque and a girl with bright haunting eyes wearing a loose red scarf.

And on the desk, outnumbering the desktop computer screen, were framed photos with their backs turned to Molly so that she could not see who was pictured.

The man at the desk stood up when he saw Molly walk into the office, glancing around as the door was shut behind her. He cleared his throat.

Molly turned to face him. He looked to be in his fifties, his dark hair was graying, and he seemed underdressed for his position in a black suit with no tie.

"Who are you, what do you know, how do you know it, and what do you want?" he asked, getting straight 'down the business'.

Molly was quiet for a moment, processing the questions and considering carefully her answers to them. She wondered how long this meeting would take and so whether she should bother to take off her coat or not. For now, she didn't. (Emotionally, it was armor.)

"I'm not comfortable giving my name, I know Jim Moriarty is Carl Powers because Jim told me, and I want to know where Jim is." Molly stated, firmly, making sure to maintain eye-contact and not to seem in any way afraid.

"You must be Molly Hooper, then." Moran sighed—in _relief_ and almost _smiling_—as he lowered himself back down into his swivel chair, comfortably, "Jim told me about you. Asked me for _advice,_ actually. Everything he knows about women, he's learned from me. But he'd never slept with anyone on the first date before. Did you know that? He wanted to know what he should do next. He really likes you. Finds you _interesting._ You work in a morgue and you wear pink. You're moral, kind and optimistic…He won't admit it but I think he admires those traits because he's never been able to find them in himself."

Molly swallowed the breath she had held at Moran's statements. She didn't let herself feel flattered or get distracted by the declaration (that could easily be a lie) that Jim _Moriarty_—_not_ Jim from IT—sincerely liked her. It didn't matter because she didn't like criminals, she liked _detectives._

And today, she was a detective and she was going to get her clues.

"So you were the one who helped Carl Powers fake his death." Molly gathered, "And you've kept in touch with him ever since." She hoped she didn't sound stupid, 'deducing that, the 'dots' had 'connected' in her mind.

"He never told you that." Moran said, "All he told you was his real name. He never thought you'd be able to do anything with it. It was Sofie who told you about me, wasn't it?" Molly nodded. "She doesn't know who Jim really is, but I should never have tried to help her get her painting sold."

"Why are you helping _Jim?"_ Molly questioned, "You work for an organization that helps the most vulnerable people in the world. Is it all just a cover?"

"No." Moran answered, "I don't approve of what Jim does. I never thought he'd turn out like this. He was a good boy growing up. I put him through school and he did well; he was smart and well-liked. I gave him every opportunity to succeed in life the legal way. He used my resources to start an international crime ring."

"You could've stopped him, turned him into the police." Molly reminded.

"The police?" Moran laughed, "Jim could _buy_ the police. He already has. The Chief Superintendent and a Detective Inspector."

Molly pursed her lips, folding her arms protectively. _So if Moran was telling the truth, trying to get Jim arrested was out of the equation, then…_

"Why is he interested in Sherlock?" she inquired.

"That's my fault, too, I'll admit." Moran admitted, somewhat embarrassedly, "I told him, just recently, that Sherlock Holmes was interested in Carl Power's 'death' back in '89. Within a week he had a plan to reveal four crimes he had helped commit to put the detective 'on the case'. I honestly think Jim was just _bored _of organizing things in secret and saw Sherlock Holmes as a way out, a way to get the attention he's always craved. But nothing's ever enough for him…"

"Why do you still speak to him?" Molly wondered, genuinely.

"Why are _you _here looking for him?" Moran returned.

"Because I want to stop him." Molly declared, "You don't. But you're still in contact with Jim even though you don't agree with what he does."

"What choice do I have at this point?" Moran shrugged, chuckling and leaning back in his chair. It leaned too with the backwards force, hovering just above the point of falling. "He's all I have. My wife divorced me, my son won't talk to me. All because of him. That's what he does to people. Destroys them. He doesn't_ kill_ them, he _destroys _them. He'll find the one thing that makes your life meaningful and take it away from you. It's what he did to _me,_ what he did to his _own mother_…and it's what he'll do to _you_ if you try to stop him."

"No, he won't!" Molly protested, too quickly, "He _can't."_ Then she instantly silenced herself. She had said too much (with only the contractions of 'will not' and 'can not'), with too much emotion. She had made herself _vulnerable…_

Because what _was_ the one thing that made Molly Hooper's life meaningful?

Was it _Sherlock Holmes?_

_No._ He was brilliant, she liked him and she didn't want him to get hurt…but if he ceased to exist Molly would live. Her life didn't revolve around a man, not even the most extraordinary one she had ever met.

Was it her _parents?_

_No._ Her father was already dead. Her mother was remarried and moved on. And so was Molly.

Was it her cat _Toby?_

_No._ She loved her furry friend with all her heart, but he was just a cat. They have shorter lifespans than humans and if she no longer grieved for her father and no longer missed her mother, it wasn't very long she would grieve for or miss a cat.

Was it her job?

_No._ Molly enjoyed her job, and it was more than 'just a job', but if she ever lost it for whatever reason, she could always find something else to do with her time and earn an income.

So what was the one thing that made her life meaningful, then?

She had no significant other, no children, and no close friends or family that she saw regularly (university friend Meena lived in Cardiff now, her mother and her mother's husband spent their retirement travelling the world, her work friend Caroline went on maternity leave and wasn't planning to return).

She had _nothing._

And that, of course, was why Jim could never 'destroy' her as Moran had said. Still, she didn't need Moran (and so Jim) to know that…

"Why not?" Moran asked, eyebrow raised, "Because he likes you? That doesn't make you _safe._ That puts you in _danger."_

"…If _I _don't stop Jim, _Sherlock _will." Molly tried, fists unconsciously clenched.

"That's what he wants." Moran countered, "He likes_ him_, too, and so he'll destroy him along with you and anybody else who gets close to him—friend or foe. So if you want to protect Sherlock Holmes, tell him to stay away from Jim. And if you want to protect yourself…well, you know what my point is by now." he rested his chin on his hand, elbow on the desk.

"So you won't tell him that I was here today." Molly replied, "So that he doesn't come after me and I stay away from him."

"I wouldn't tell him…except that if you've found me, then that means Sherlock Holmes inevitably will." Moran disagreed, "And he has an older brother with a higher position in the government than I do. He can't know of my connection Jim, or he'll think _I'm _involved with his crimes."

"What does that have to do with me?" Molly questioned, one of her hands reached across her torso to hold the coatsleeve baggy around her elbow. She fidgeted the fabric back and forth.

"Sofie won't tell Holmes about me, she didn't even tell him that she was the one who painted the forgery." Moran explained, "So if he learns about me, it'll be from you. I can't have that. But I'm kind of person who sings lullabies disfigured orphans and always looks both ways before crossing the street. I'm not _scary _enough to stop you from going to Sherlock Holmes. But Jim Moriarty _is._ And he'll have to be a little more convincing about frightening you this time, as he obviously wasn't the last time since you're _here." _

"Good." Molly stated, matter-of-factly, causing Moran to blink in surprise, "Please _do_ tell Jim that I was here because I _want_ to talk to him. It's why I came all this way."

"I will and I'm sorry." Moran responded, regretfully, "I'm so, _so_ sorry…"

* * *

><p>(December, 2010)<p>

In Tower Hamlets, there was bike messenger who rode around on a bicycle delivering 'messages' long after the invention of email which made bike messengers obsolete.

His name was Joe Harrison.

He was tall, skinny and in good shape, due to his job. He wore skintight bikeclothing ( shortsleeve shirts and shorts no matter the weather), and always a helmet.

"How do you know this man?" Charlie asked Jim.

They, Victor and Romeo were loitering in front of a Tesco, watching the messenger deliver his goods to various passersby in the neighborhood of highrises.

"Met him at a party." Jim answered, "He's got fancier clients, too. Businessmen, barristers and solicitors, bankers…But it's almost Christmas so they're taking some time off."

"You met him at a party?" Victor scoffed, "Whose party? How well do you really know him? We can't trust him."

"How well do you really know me?" Jim returned, "But you trust me enough to get your drugs sold. Harrison's just a dealer and he'll do his job. What else is there to know? ...and not to drop names, but it was McQueen's party."

"Who?" Victor asked, taken aback. He glanced at Romeo who shrugged and shook his head in matched confusion.

Jim chuckled, half in mockery and half in shock that Victor and Romeo didn't know who Alexander McQueen was.

"A fashion designer." Charlie informed his two associates.

"Are we supposed to be impressed?" Victor snorted.

Jim shoved his hands into his peacoat pocket, "Well, the man_ was _a legend, god rest his soul…"

Victor rolled his eyes. Charlie folded his arms. Romeo stood still and silent.

Jim sighed.

"Go and get your dealer." Charlie instructed.

"He's not _my_ dealer." Jim corrected, in offense, "I'm not an addict. Well except maybe for caffeine, that is."

"Just go, already." Victor groaned.

Jim jogged across and down the street until he blocked the path of Harrison's bike. Harrison jerked to a quick stop, put one foot down to balance the bicycle in place, and glared at Jim.

"What do_ you_ want?" he snapped.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend, Joe?" Jim chastised.

"We're not friends, Rich." Harrison countered, "You don't make friends by accusing someone of being a drug dealer in front of a room full of important people."

(Joe Harrison new Jim Moriarty as 'Richard Brook', as did the majority of people who had seen his face.)

"Well you certainly weren't a model, tall and skinny enough but too much chest hair." Jim reasoned, pointing at the hair poking out through the zipper of Harrison's compressionshirt, "And your clothes were too cheap and tacky that night."

"I'm going to ask you one more time before I run you over." Harrison declared, _"What do you want?"_

"See those guys over there?" Jim gestured behind himself towards Charlie, Victor and Romeo, "They've got heroin for you to sell, and they'll give you a better cut than the Bengali's do for selling it."

"I'm not working for you and your stupid friends." Harrison refused.

"You want to be slave to the Asian gangs forever?" Jim checked.

"You think I care if the people I work for are Asian or English?" Harrison laughed, "I don't as long as I get paid."

"Well, you seemed pretty angry that night that your sister was dating an Indian man." Jim recounted, slyly.

"I was drunk and I got over it." Harrison recanted, "He's a good man. He has a good job with the government and he treats her well."

"And do you want your dear baby sister to find out about what you really do for a living?" Jim asked.

Harrison tensed at this. "You have no proof…" he attempted.

Jim pulled his mobilephone from his pocket, waving it in front of Harrison and smirking. "I've recorded our conversation," he said, "…and don't bother trying to take my phone, it's linked up to my business partners' phones over there and I don't you can chase all three of them down and steal their phones too, even if you're cycling."

"Fine, whatever." Harrison gave up, groaning, "I'll sell your damn drugs."

Jim smiled.

"Then, come on over and meet the family." he requested, already turning and starting towards the corner shop, "We'll get you set up."

Reluctantly and defeated, Harrison hopped back on his bike and rode after him.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Once Molly Hooper had left his office, Lord August Moran stared into his blank computer screen (fallen asleep due to inactivity during the conversation) and the empty frames propped up on his desk where photographs of his wife and son used to be. He sighed, then reached down to unlock the deskdrawer where he kept the phone he used to communicate with Jim Moriarty. It was Japanese. And in the drawer were the old photos.

"Jim, where are you?"

"What? No pleasantries? Not even a 'hello'? I won't be so rude. Hello, Uncle Aug, how are you today? How was the Chinese election?"

"South Korean. You know it was South Korean. And went exactly how I paid for it to go. Where are you?"

"Hiding."

"…what kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?"

"You know the Criminal Network I spent the last ten years of my life building…?"

"Yes?"

"…well, they want to kill me now. One of them just tried to shoot me with a sniper rifle."

"Oh, Jim….I warned you about going public. But that's not the only problem you have at the moment, I'm sorry to say. Molly Hooper just visited."

"Really? I'm impressed. But that means Sherlock won't be far behind."

"That's what I want you to prevent."

"What if I don't _want_ to prevent it…?"

"You want us both to get arrested by Mycroft Holmes?"

"Not _you,_ Auggy. Just _me._ When Sherlock, or Mycroft, or whoever comes to you to get to me I want you to turn me in. Tell them where to find me and that I'll go quietly. Cut a deal with them to give me up and stay out of trouble."

"…what? _Why?"_

"I need to get close to my Holmes-boys It's for a client. And for _me, _too…"

"If Mycroft Holmes captures you, you won't be taken to a regular prison. You'll be hidden away somewhere and I won't be able to get you out. So how do you plan to escape?"

"I know some people. Don't worry about me."

"You know I've never been able to do that. Who are these 'people'?"

"An ex-CIA agent and a three man drug gang."

"My god, how do you meet these kinds of people…?"

"I'm just the sweet honey that attracts all the flies."

"Or maybe, you're just the venus flytrap that eats them alive."

"Speaking of eating alive, where has Molly run off to now? I'm getting hungry…"

"I told her that you'd be coming after her. So wherever she is she's waiting for you. Be nice to her, please. She seems like a sweet young lady."

"You say that about every woman. But it was your old flame who sold you out, wasn't it?"

"That doesn't matter. I was raised to respect women. And I _tried_ to teach you the same."

"You're a manwhore and you know it. You cheated on your wife and you sleep around in whatever country you visit."

"And yet _I've_ never killed anyone. Don't lecture me on morals, Jim. And before you say it, no Carl Powers_ doesn't_ count because, as you know, you didn't actually _die."_

"You know, you still never did tell me why little Carl had to die…"

"But I did tell you, every time you asked, that it's really better for you that you don't know."

"I'm an international criminal with my own network out to murder me. What more harm could it possibility do at this point?"

"…I'm not going to tell you why and I never will. But is there anything else you'd like me to do besides turning you into the authorities whenever they question me?

"Yeah, um…do you think Molly'd like flowers or chocolates better?"

* * *

><p>(January, 2011)<p>

After coming to London and meeting Jefferson Hope, and later Charlie, Victor, and Romeo, all on Christmas Eve (paying the former not to kill him and arranging for the latter three to sell drugs via bike messenger), Jim Moriarty found himself standing outside the hotel in which the newly-elected local MP of Transport Beth Davenport was having her victory party.

Charlie, who seemed to be the leader, of the 'Three Musketeers' (as Jim referred to them playfully in his mind, himself being the fourth) had texted Jim, asking for a favor.

That favor was killing the MP of Transport so the runner-up who would surely win the by-election could take her place. The runner-up was willing to instruct transportation authorities to look the other way as the Three Musketeers smuggled in their heroin.

It was dark and chilly, the base of whatever music was blaring inside pumped like an enthusiastic heartbeat. Jim couldn't help but tap his foot despite not being able to hear the song.

Eventually the blonde woman emerged from the hotel's doubledoors, wobbling in her heels and state of intoxication. Jim followed her, just far enough behind her that in her drunken stupor she didn't notice him, and watched from behind an adjacent vehicle as she rooted through her purse in front of her car.

Unable to find her keys, she threw her hands up in frustration, dropping her purse. She bent to pick it up and when she returned to her full height, Jim stood beside. She gasped and jumped, falling backwards slightly, to lean against the door to her car.

"Who are you?!" she demanded, placing her purse between her and the stranger as 'protection'.

"Just a constituent." Jim smiled, "I voted for you."

"Oh, thank you..." Davenport returned. She extended a hand to shake, but couldn't steady it and so brought it up to clutch her forehead. Everything was blurry. "I'm sorry, I'm not being very, um, professional…"

"It's alright." Jim shrugged, "We all have our bad days. But it's a good day for you. You've just won your first election. You deserve to enjoy yourself a bit—or a _lot,_ as it seems you are." He chuckled.

Davenport laughed, too. A little too loudly. She quickly covered her mouth with both hands.

"…let me just call you a cab, alright?" Jim decided.

"Yeah." Davenport nodded, "Please."

With one hand Jim patted her on the shoulder, with his other hand he pulled out his mobilephone and dialed Jefferson Hope.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Molly was on her way back to the tube station when she heard her phone beep in the purse hanging from her shoulder, indicating that a text message had arrived. She pulled it out and covered the screen partially with her other hand so she could read the text.

_See you at the Fox. _

There was no signature, but it was from the same number Jim from IT had used (which meant that apparently it was Jim Moriarty's real phone) and the message obviously referred to the location their third date _would_ _have_ occurred—_had Jim not been a mass murderer_.

Molly, and her heart, stopped.

This is what she wanted, _wasn't it?_ To track Jim Moriarty down and confront him, just like Sherlock Holmes would. To prove herself _worthy_ (not just to Sherlock, that she was 'good' (clever) enough for him but to herself, too, that she really deserved someone different like Sherlock…even if she never got him).

But Molly was suddenly afraid. She had been so sure of herself (well, as sure as she had ever been) meeting with Sofie Wenceslas and Lord Moran…

…but now that she would be meeting with Jim again she was scared. Last time, he had come to her, trapped her in her own territory. This time, she was hunting him—or at least she was_ supposed_ to be.

But once again, Jim was the one who had chosen the location of their meeting. First her flat, now an upscale pub.

_Why would Jim choose the Fox in particular?_ Molly wondered. It was place he'd promised to take her on a _real _and romantic date to, since the first two had happened in her flat. He was trying to remind her of their 'feelings' for each other, then, Molly decided. But was it to bring her guard down…or to mock her for being fooled by him and put her on edge?

Molly couldn't tell.

Nervously, she hailed a taxicab and rode the fifteen minutes through the traffic quietly staring down at her mobilephone in her lap. She then paid and exited outside the renovated old two-story corner building that was the Fox.

Its outer walls were white with brown trim on the ground floor and brick above it on the outer walls of the first, its thick wooden door had a silvery carving of the animal it was named after so Molly knew she was in the right place.

It was surprisingly bright inside, for a pub, since all its curtains were open and it was really more of a restaurant. In the doorway Molly glanced at the bar, tables and booths, (all empty except for the man behind the bar and the man at one of the booths) searching for Jim.

She almost didn't recognize him until he looked up at her, he was in the very back booth, staring down at a mug of coffee (she could tell from the rising steam) instead of whatever alcoholic beverage he preferred (they'd never drank together in the short time they'd known each other). Jim was wearing the exact same suit he had worn the night (early morning) before, but looked much more unshaven and disheveled than he had then. Molly stared blankly at him in shock once she had sat down across from him on the wood bench.

With the hand not clutching the coffee mug, Jim grabbed something from the seat beside him that Molly couldn't see and sat it on the table in front of her so that she could.

"Here," he said, "I bought you chocolates." He slid the small and square, red and white box towards her.

Molly blinked in surprise. "You did?" The lines on her forehead scrunched.

"I know you're watching your weight, which I appreciate, but I think you look fine the way you do and deserve to indulge." Jim continued, smirking as he sarcastically he recited the line August Moran had told him over the phone. (The lord thought it was his charms that won women…really it was just his money and power.)

Molly didn't open the box, she didn't even touch it. It's not that she thought the candy would be poisoned, or anything, she just didn't want to accept a gift from the likes of Jim Moriarty. (And yes, she was watching her weight and the thing about boxes of chocolates wasn't that 'you never know what you're going to get' but that you can never just have _one.)_

"You look…_terrible."_ She finally choked out, instead, to distract from the chocolate.

"You're too kind." He snarked weakly, only bothering to roll his eyes half way.

"Are you alright?" Molly checked. She even attempted to reach across the table to feel Jim's high forehead for a fever. She pulled back, midway, not wanting to touch him.

"I haven't slept in thirty odd hours." Jim shrugged, "Sherlock Holmes and the police are after me. Someone decided to shoot at me outside my hotel. I haven't even had a chance to shower or change clothes, and now you're harassing my clients and associates to get to me."

"So you're fine, I take it." Molly joked. She didn't know whether to believe his story about being shot at, but if it were true then he wasn't as all powerful as he'd pretended to be or as Lord Moran had warned.

(Still, she was 'playing it safe', for now. Part polite, part vitriol. Like _friends_ would. None of the 'deep', important stuff yet. This was _foreplay.)_

Jim chuckled.

"So what do you want, Molly?" he asked, "After I was kind enough to let you live, why'd you put yourself back in danger and play detective? Don't tell me it's just to impress Sherlock or that he and all of Scotland Yard are waiting outside to arrest me. That would be painfully predictable and so far, except for calling the cops on me last night, you've done such a good job of _surprising_ me."

"I want you to stop." Molly declared, "Stop committing crimes. Stop killing people. Stop going after Sherlock."

"No, not _that."_ Jim groaned, resting his chin on his palm and his elbow on the table, "Of course you want to stop me. Almost everyone does. That's _obvious._ But what _else_ do you want? Why did the princess really come to face the dragon?"

Molly rolled her eyes at the metaphor. She'd left her princess phase behind in primary school and right now, dirty and tired, Jim didn't look like a dragon.

(It was time to stop 'playing it safe' now. Time to stop _playing.)_

"I want to know why." She stated.

"'Why?'" Jim repeated.

Molly nodded. "Yes," she confirmed, _"Why?"_

Jim laughed, shaking his head down at his coffee before looking back up at her confused expression.

"No, no, I mean 'why' as in why do people always want to know why?" he clarified, "It's not like it really matters, does it? What's done is done."

"…Understanding helps people process things, I think." Molly replied, thoughtfully, "It doesn't change the past, it just provides context."

"And you want 'context', so you can 'understand' and 'process' me lying to you and blowing up a building?" Jim smirked, glancing up at the decorative lamp hanging above their heads like a miniature sun, "Sorry darling, there is none. I just thought it would be fun. Now doesn't that scare you?"

"Yes, honestly." Molly admitted, "But I don't think you only did it for 'fun'. You already told me about Carl Powers. For some reason you trust me. So why not tell me the rest?"

"I don't _trust _you." Jim scoffed, "I told you so you'd tell Sherlock. He'd get so pissy that 'stupid' Molly Hooper figured out something he couldn't. If you tell him, he might just start to notice you. Carl Powers is my gift to you."

"You told me because you wanted me to know." Molly edited, "And you wanted me to tell Sherlock so that _he_ would know. You want him to understand you. So you don't feel alone."

"You think I feel alone?" Jim asked, chuckling as if the idea was ridiculous but then adding, "…you're right. I _do._ Very good. I'm different. _Sherlock _is, too. And so he's the only one that could ever 'get' me—capture a_nd _comprehend me—because we're the same."

"You and Sherlock _aren't_ the same." Molly protested, "Both of you are geniuses, that's true, but that's _all _you have in common."

Jim snorted at that. _"I_ love death, _Sherlock_ loves death. I live for crime, _Sherlock _lives for crime._ I_ use people, _Sherlock _uses people. We've both even used the same person. _You."_

"Sherlock would never _kill."_ Molly countered, with complete certainty.

"Why are you so sure of that?" Jim questioned, raising an eyebrow, "You're idol's an admitted sociopath. A pragmatist. He's never believed in law and morals, he thinks they're silly. He just does whatever serves his purpose. Right now it happens to be solving crimes. _But he'll get bored of that eventually…"_

Molly swallowed contemplatively.

One of the traits she admired in Sherlock Holmes was the same trait she despised in Jim Moriarty; _breaking the rules._ Sherlock broke them in _moderation._ Jim broke them in _excess. _It made Sherlock into a sharp but controlled knife with a single point. It made Jim into broken glass that cut from all edges.

But what if Sherlock became too addicted to breaking the rules? What if he moved past moderation and into excess…?

"What about you?" Molly redirected, "Will_ you_ ever get bored of crime?"

"I already have." Jim declared, matter-of-factly, "It's why I gave up my Criminal Network for my game with Sherlock. He's the last chapter of my crime novel."

Molly gaped, taken aback. Jim grinned.

"Why didn't you just turn yourself in, then?" Molly continued, unfettered by Jim's shocking admission.

"I'm getting to that," Jim promised, "All in good time. Can't be too obvious about it or they'll suspect something…" He leaned back against the smooth board of the booth behind him. Attached to the brick wall, it didn't budge and so he just slid down in his seat.

"You _want _to get caught?" Molly inquired, narrowing her eyes, _"Why?" _

"Already told you, I'm bored of crime." Jim shrugged, "…The only problem, of course, is that Sherlock doesn't want me in prison. He'd have caught me by now, if he was trying. But he isn't. He wants me free because I gave him something no one else could. I'm the only one who's ever designed a case _just for him._ He had so much fun jumping from stone to stone across the rapids to get to me that when he did. And he'll always let me go, 'cause if he catches me the game is over and so is the fun."

"…so _you _want to get caught…" Molly repeated, making sure she understood the situation, "…but _Sherlock_ doesn't want to catch you."

"That's right." Jim confirmed, with a nod and a smirk, "And that changes things for you, doesn't it? You can't turn me in to the cops because it's what_ I_ want, not what _Sherlock _wants and you wouldn't want to make dear Sherlock _sad_…or _me _happy. So it's game over for you, Molly Hooper. You lose."

Molly sighed.

"…this isn't a game for _me,_ Jim." She said, speaking his name for the first time this entire conversation. It felt strange on her tongue, like in word in another language. It didn't have the same definition it once had.

Molly felt helpless.

If she somehow managed to get Jim arrested, which was her original plan, it would be exactly what he wanted and probably also annoy Sherlock, eliminating whatever small chance she ever had of receiving his attention—_unless Jim was lying (again)._ And he just wanted her to think that so she wouldn't call the police or Sherlock and get him locked away for the rest of his life.

Molly didn't know what to do. She wondered what Sherlock would do in a position like this, how he would figure it out…but she wasn't Sherlock and so she didn't know.

She stared down at wooden table where her plate would have been had she been able to order any food…

(Jim must have instructed the staff not to bother them with menus, he probably had slipped them some money so he could sit for hours nursing a single cup of coffee, too, as well as paying them to shut down the pub while he was in there so that he could be alone.)

…The hand that had tried to reach towards Jim early rested on the table, while the other rested in her lap.

Mimicking her earlier movement, then subverting it, Jim reached out towards that hand on the table and took it in his own.

The feeling of an extremely warm (from holding the steaming coffee mug) hand around hers startled Molly and she jerked on her bench, head immediately jolted back up to face Jim.

"_Yes it is."_ He asserted_, _more seriously than he'd ever said anything to her before, gazing directly into her eyes,_ "Everything's_ a game. And when you realize that, you'll be free…"

"No." Molly disagreed, shaking her head and pulling her hand back away from him, "I'll never believe that nothing matters—that nothing is _real._ It's just an excuse not to care about anything, about _other people." _

"I don't need an excuse not to care." Jim dismissed, laughing, "It's not about _that._ It's about living my life the way I want to live it. Most people follow. Orders, leaders, rules; cultures, family members, friends. Doesn't matter whether they're civilians on the street or soldiers on a battlefield, _people follow._ And what they_ do_ depends on what they're _told._ But I don't listen."

"That doesn't mean you have to hurt people." Molly reasoned. Now, she hid her hands under the table and away from Jim's.

"It does, if I want to." Jim countered, "There're millions who have hurt people. _Killed_ people. Why aren't you lecturing_ them_ on morals?"

"Because _they're_ not the one sitting in front of me." Molly stated simply, _"You_ are."

"And why am I sitting in front of you, again?" Jim checked, "Because_ you_ sought _me_ out. Even though you knew better, even though you were warned not to. You're gambling with your life. This _already _is a game to you."

"It's not." Molly denied, "I'm just doing what I have to."

"Doing what you 'have to'?" Jim snorted, "If you were doing _that_ you'd have killed me and damned the consequences, damned your emotions and morals. Because that's what needs to be done. I'm a murderer and I deserve to die. I know it and so do you. But you're not_ doing anything. _You're just talking to me, _feeling me out_…you're not sure what to do next because you were never sure of what you wanted to do in the first place. So you're swinging back and forth, _back and forth,_ waiting for something to happen so that you don't have to make a decision. You're a _follower,_ Molly, and you're waiting to be told what to do."

Molly was silent for a moment. She furrowed her brow, stiffened her shoulders and then took a deep breath.

"Okay." She accepted, nodding, "I am a follower…but I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to follow you."

"While, I'm flattered you've chosen me as your prophet—" Jim began, smugly…only to be interrupted.

"Not like _that."_ Molly corrected, "I mean I'm going to _physically follow you._ Where you go_, I_ go. I'm going to…well, _spy _on you. There's no use calling it anything else or trying to pretend that's not what I'm doing, since you'd have figured it out pretty soon anyway. I'm going to do exactly what you said I'd do; follow and wait for something to happen."

"And what if I don't let you?" Jim tried, raising an eyebrow.

"You will." Molly replied, confidently. She lifted both hands from her lap to rest folded on the table.

"Well, I suppose I wouldn't mind having you around for a while til the spooks come for me…" Jim mused.

"The spooks?" Molly inquired.

"_Sherlock_ doesn't want me behind bars…but his big brother _does." _Jim explained.

(Molly was still unsure of what Jim meant (did Sherlock _actually_ have 'big brother' or was it some kind of 1984 reference?) but didn't ask for further clarification so as not to look stupid and uniformed about Sherlock's life.)

"Oh." Molly accepted, ambiguously.

Jim smirked, recognizing and relishing in her confusion. He loved feeling smarter than other people.

"But there is one condition," Jim decided, "if you want to be my second shadow."

"What is it?" Molly asked.

Jim grinned.

"You've got to eat the chocolate I got you." Jim told her, opening the lid to the red and white box for her, "_Every last piece…"_

* * *

><p>(January, 2011)<p>

Large blue metal crates sat on the dirt ground, surrounded by thin wire fencing. Inside one of these structures, storage units, lay the body of Beth Davenport slumped dead against the only items in the room—a plastic table and chair.

The searing yellow light from a circular bulb above lit the room as Jim entered, holding open the door for Charlie, Victor and Romeo and then gesturing to the dead woman at the table.

"There's your girl." He introduced, "Just like you asked for."

Charlie stepped towards the table, inspecting the corpse without touching it.

"Clean." He complimented, "…almost like those 'serial suicides' that have been in the papers recently…" he turned to Jim, cocking his head slightly to one side and giving him a quizzical but knowing look complete with an almost-smile, "You wouldn't know anything about those, would you?"

"Nothing." Jim grinned.

"Now that we've seen she's dead, let's go." Victor stated, "Won't be long before someone comes looking for her."

He eyed the body approvingly, then Jim dismissively, and then started back towards the exit. Romeo followed.

"So, have I proven myself to the cool kids, yet?" Jim asked in false over-eagerness.

"You have." Charlie confirmed, with a nod and the same small smile, "Welcome to the club."

"So when do I get NATO nickname, then?" Jim added, leaning on the plastic table but not letting his ungloved hands rest upon it.

"You can be Juliett." Victor snorted. And Charlie smiled fully at that.

"Does that mean I get Romeo?" Jim inquired, batting his eyelashes at the younger man just mentioned.

Romeo tensed, glancing away uncomfortably. Jim snickered.

"No, you get to die at the end." Victor corrected, chuckling darkly.

His prediction didn't stop Jim's laughter, though, as he had hoped. The consulting criminal continued to smirk.

"We don't give out or choose the codenames ourselves." Charlie explained, "Papa does that."

"When do I get to meet Papa?" Jim questioned.

"Never." Charlie answered.

Victor chuckled darkly again. Maybe at Jim not being allowed to see Papa, maybe at something. He continued out the storage unit's door and was gone.

Romeo glanced back at Charlie and then was gone, too. Charlie turned to Jim but Jim motioned an 'after you' towards the exit so Charlie passed him and left.

Alone in the metal crate with the body of Beth Davenport, Jim gently blew the woman a kiss and then left her alone to rest.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

At her desk in front of the door Lord Moran's office, his assistant sat staring into her computer screen with earbuds in her ears. Instead of music, they softly played the sound of the conversation occurring in the room behind.

A conversation about Carl Powers and Jim Moriarty.

Once it was over, the assistant removed her earbuds, stood up from her desk, went back into the stairwell and pulled out her mobilephone to call her _other_ boss.

Her _other_ boss that would get her family deported back to the country where certain political rivals wanted them dead (especially her father) if she didn't do as he ordered.

Her _other_ boss, Mr. Magnussen, of CAM Media Corporation.

* * *

><p><strong>I was gonna call Magnussen the assistant's 'owner'…but I made her West African so that wouldn't really be PC. She is how Magnussen knew about Carl Powers to tell Mr. Banks. <strong>

…**Meanwhile, of course, characters are dealing drugs, threatening and killing people. So I win the award for not writing as evilly as I could have. lol.**

**I miss Magnussen, though. He was a wonderful creep. But bring back two villains from the dead is too cheesy. **

**Moran seems like an Irish name, so I made August Moran part Irish, too. Jim calls him 'uncle', but they're not genetically related. **

**I know absolutely nothing about high fashion beyond the movie The Devil Wears Prada. All my clothes are from Target, Forever 21 and Goodwill. **

**As always, Wikipedia is my lord and savior. Well, mostly just my savior. **

**RIP to Lee Alexander McQueen. He died in 2010. No disrespect towards him intended.**

**There are multiple restaurants, clubs and pubs with variations of the name 'Fox'. The one in this story is some sort of a combination of some of them. **

**And I really didn't wanna do the whole 'Hades and Persephone' thing because it's been overdone with this paring…but then came the chocolate and I couldn't help it. **

**Charlie, Victor, Romeo and Jim are the "serious people" Joe Harrison got involved with when selling drugs. **

**And if you haven't already guessed this… Charlie is headcanon Michael Fassbender!Moran, Victor is headcanon Craig Parkinson!Moran, and Romeo is the mysterious sniper from The Reichenbach Fall. We'll see who**_** else**_** these people really are, later…**

**Any guesses? (One of them's easier to guess than the others.) **

**Hope you liked it! Please review! **


	5. The Cradle Will Fall

**EDIT: ****In the time I'd spent away from this story and due to how confusing I made the plot, I made a stupid mistake. I gave Moran's son the wrong name. If anyone saw the wrong name, I'm sorry, but I corrected it now. The wrong name is gonna be a different character so my mistake kinda spoiled future chapters (if I ever get around to writing them). Sorry again. **

**It's been like two months, hasn't it?**

**I'm very sorry. **

**I understand if you've moved on from this story. (I almost did. I've been writing Molliarty for two years now. That's a long time to devote to one pairing.)**

**Still, here is this chapter. I hope you like it.**

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

"I travel in style." Jim smirked, gesturing to the small limousine that had appeared at the press of a button (keypad, Jim had texted the driver(—he really preferred cabs, as they were more anonymous, but today he was showing off for a girl so he had booked it using the memorized number of Lord Moran's office credit card)).

The driver even got out of the idling vehicle to open the backdoor for him and Molly, before zooming them away from the Fox restaurant and pub.

Molly had never been in a limousine before. She always considered herself the 'no nonsense' kind of woman who didn't need to be 'wined and dined' with flowers, chocolates, expensive jewelry and limo rides…but now that she sat, unbelted, in in a limo with an empty box of chocolates on her lap, she couldn't deny the bitter irony she felt that Jim Moriarty was the only man who'd ever bothered to 'wine and dine' her (sure, she'd gotten flowers and chocolates before, and nice dinners in nice—but not too fancy—restaurants, of course, but never a limousine ride).

She knew this could all be (and probably was) some sinister plot or trap on Jim's part, but she also knew she had walked herself straight into it by seeking him out and agreeing to meet with him at his location of choice, and then getting into a car (limo) with him. Still, she felt safe because if Jim wanted her dead she would be (and she wasn't) and because he seemed to have bigger problems than Molly Hooper at the moment (former associates trying to kill him).

On the leathercoated seats, Jim lay down across from where Molly sat as the limo began to move.

"Will you tell me where're we going?" Molly asked.

"_I'm_ going to take a nap now." he declared, "Sorry to disappoint, but following me won't be very exciting." He closed his eyes, resting his arms behind his head and his crossed feet against the tinted windows.

"…that didn't answer my question…" Molly murmured, knowing that Jim was most likely intentionally not answering her question.

"We're just going to drive around." Jim explained, eyes still closed, "I've got to keep moving to stay safe. It'll only be thirty-minutes or so, though, I can rarely sleep for longer."

"Nightmares?" Molly guessed.

Jim chuckled, opening one eye to roll it at her and raise his eyebrow, before closing it again.

Instead of staring out the dark windows at London, Molly stared at Jim's chest watching his breathing as it slowed from waking to rest to sleep.

She let him sleep undisturbed for over ten minutes before she dared reaching across for the mobilephone peeking out of his suitjacket pocket. It was probably password protected, but she still had to _try._

Just as her fingers were about to touch the smooth surface another hand batted hers away and grabbed the phone. She glanced at Jim's face. His eyes were still closed but she could tell he was awake. He shook his head and Molly retreated, sinking back into her seat. Jim's fingers stayed curled around the mobile the rest of the ride.

At least the limousine had a television. This was going to be long ride…

…after an hour of muted, subtitled TV (that, along with all the chocolates Molly'd been forced to eat in order to follow Jim, made her sick to her stomach), Jim stirred.

Sleep, just like death, , and all people seemed to look like innocent children when asleep—including Jim Moriarty.

Finally, his eyes opened and he sat up, wide awake. Stretching, he glanced around the back of the limo; at the muted miniature TV, at the darkened glass of the windows on the doors and the window separating the back from the driver, at Molly.

"You're carsick." He noticed.

Molly was tense, but her eyes were unsteady. She had been watching out the window after the subtitles on the screen had made her dizzy, and only looked back inside the vehicle when she saw Jim's reflection move. Now she was facing Jim again, but not making eyecontact.

He reached up and turned off the overhead television.

"You overslept." Molly replied, "You said it'd be thirty minutes but it was an hour."

"I was tired." Jim shrugged, "Still am, but I don't think Uncle August'll appreciate any more hours of limo billed to his office."

"So where are we going now? Molly asked.

"Shopping." Jim stated.

"Okay." Molly accepted.

Jim turned around and knocked on the window separating them from the driver. The driver glanced back, acknowledging with "yes, sir?", before returning his attention to the road ahead. Jim told him an address.

Molly didn't recognize it specifically, but knew it was somewhere upscale since it was in Mayfair.

Ever since she was young, she'd always wondered if anyone actually ever lived the glamorous lifestyles of being chauffeured in limousines and shopping at expensive brandname stores she'd seen in movies and magazines, as if it was _everyday life, _as ordinaryas taking showers and going to work every day._ Wondered_—but not _wanted._

Did she want this life now? Now that she was playing with it on her lips, about to taste it?

Maybe the stomach ache wasn't subtitles and chocolates, after all. Maybe it was _excitement._

…or maybe it was _fear._

"You said someone shot at you." Molly recalled, "Who was it?"

"…my own Criminal Network." Jim admitted, chuckling embarrassedly and shaking his head, "They didn't like me revealing myself to Sherlock. He did, though. Maybe they were jealous."

"That's the real reason you want to get caught!" Molly exclaimed in realization, "They can't kill you if you're in prison!"

"Nice one, Nancy Drew." Jim complimented, "Any others?"

"…no…" Molly responded, "But I do have a question. Why did you have to fake your death as Carl Powers? You were just a child. You wouldn't tell me before but there's no reason not to. It was over twenty years ago. So just tell me why?"

"No." Jim refused, matter-of-factly (the truth was that he didn't know all the details himself, but he didn't want to admit that), "That's my oldest secret and I'll never divulge it. Not to you. Not even to Sherlock."

"If you won't tell me why then tell me _how."_ Molly followed-up, "I know you can't resist to doing that. That's why you had Sherlock solve your crimes. Because you want someone to know the genius of how you got away with them. But Sherlock doesn't know you used to be Carl Powers. He doesn't know you faked your death, so he'd never be able to figure out how. And that must bother you; no one knowing about how smart you were to fake your death as a little boy, no one being able to appreciate it—"

Jim scoffed.

"You think you know me so well, don't you? What motivates me, what I _need…"_ he laughed, dismissively. He leaned forwards towards Molly, "All artists want admiration, of course, but they don't create to fill whatever 'void' they have with admiration, the art itself fills it."

"You see yourself as an artist?" Molly inquired, instinctively moving slightly backwards away from Jim as he moved towards her, before stopping herself and then compensating by leaning back towards him.

Jim shook his head, still chuckling slightly.

"No, not like that." Jim explained, "I do—well, I did—commissions as a consulting criminal. I filled other peoples 'voids' with my 'art'."

"And how did you fill your own void?"

"With Sherlock…and his admiration."

"So, I was right. You do want appreciation for the genius of your crimes."

"Yes. But faking Carl Powers' death was not _my_ crime."

Jim smiled at the masked look of surprise and then realization on Molly's face. She was trying so hard to be blank-faced, because she was trying so hard to be smart and hadn't yet figured out that being smart didn't mean you could never be surprised.

"It was Lord August Moran." Molly guessed.

"Nancy's done it again." Jim smirked.

"So are you going to tell me how he did it?" Molly asked.

"Say please." Jim conditioned, smirk still curling up his cheek. He was _daring _her. And despite the smile, he looked as if he would burst like a grenade if she pulled the pin took the dare.

He leaned in closer towards her. She made sure to stay still, rigidly so, this time and not retreat like a soldier from an oncoming tank. (They were both humans—both soldiers in this made up war between 'good' and 'evil'. Jim Moriarty was _not_ a tank and Molly would _not_ retreat. She would face him now, when he was talking peace and she would (inevitably, she knew) face him later when he was threatening (or creating) violence.)

"_Please."_ Molly declared. Her voice was less forceful than she'd hoped it would sound, but it did not waver.

"Okay." Jim agreed, leaning back against the leather and resting his hands behind his head, his elbows creating triangle flags on each side (empty flags because Jim didn't _really _fight for a side in the war, he was a mercenary for 'evil' but he was also his own army and his own cause), "I'll tell you. This is the story of Carl Powers…"

* * *

><p>(1989)<p>

Carl Powers was a good boy.

He was a champion swimmer, received good marks in (almost) all his classes, and attended a public school on a partial scholarship (the difference paid for by the overtime his mother worked as a nurse) where he was well-liked by teachers and fellow students alike. His only (visible) flaw was his flakey skin; dry and irritated due to the amount of time he spent submerged in chlorinated water.

The invisible flaws—being a fatherless latchkey kid who only pretended to like his friends (maybe he was jealous of their big allowances and embarrassed by his lack of an allowance at all) and only pretended to love his mother (maybe because she forced him to swim but never attended any of the after school races) went unnoticed by everyone by Carl himself.

Car Powers was a good boy…

…but he was also an angry boy.

Carl lived in Tower Hill, Horsham (West Sussex) and went to school in Brighton (East Sussex). Every weekend, instead of practicing in the school's pool, the swimteam practiced in the London pool where the national competition was held. It was temporarily closed to the public for a few hours every day so that the winning school swimteams from all over England could practice, without the distractions of cannonballing kids, slow lap-swimming grownups and adult swim.

When he was ten, Carl's mother didn't allow him to take the train by himself to swim practice. She rode with him, reading the newspaper as he read a paperback from the school library, all the way to practice and then sat in the mostly-empty stands with the mothers of the younger kids.

But now Carl was _eleven_ years old, and despite her 'better judgment', Carl's mother was finally letting Carl take the train _all by himself. _

It was the same route as he had always taken with his mother before, a straight line from Brighton to London, with the same sparse spattering of people (mostly teenage students and grandparents taking daytrips to London) avoiding eye-contact on a Saturday morning. But, despite his 'better judgment'—the same 'better judgment' that convinced his mother why he was mature enough to ride alone (since he knew exactly where he was going and not to talk to strangers)—Carl couldn't help but feel 'cool' and 'grownup' for taking the train by himself (even though he knew it wasn't 'cool' and 'grownup' to feel 'cool' and 'grownup' about something as simple as riding a train alone).

Sadly for Carl, today was the wrong day to take the train.

First, the workers were striking again, so the train was late and as Carl idled alone on platform (attracting questioning glances from adults) he was afraid his mother had somehow called and had it cancelled. On his back hung a backpack in which were his swimsuit and the book he was currently reading.

When the train finally came, Carl sat in his usual seat, his backpack sitting in his mother's usual seat. He looked around nervously at the other passengers, and then out the window when they looked back, forgetting about the book.

The book was a fantasy novel. The kind of book where a young orphaned boy in another version of medieval Middle Earth leaves his blacksmith apprenticeship to find adventure and realize his destiny (there's usually a princess, too, but Carl didn't care about that (yet)). The kind of book where boys without fathers were heroes—_where boys like Carl mattered. _

Suddenly, the train was under a tunnel. The suburbanscape Carl had been staring blankly out the window into instantly became a black mirror in which Carl saw his own face…

…and the face of the man sitting across from him. Actually, it was the reflection of the face of the man sitting across from him, who was also staring out his window.

The man was dressed in a black suit (complete with a vest under his suitjacket (Carl never understood this practice), like the fathers of his classmates wore) and shiny black shoes. In his hand was a briefcase, in his other hand a pager.

He was rich and important, Carl could tell that much.

This surprised Carl. Why would a rich man be taking a train instead of one of those fancy long cars? And why would he be dressed up on a Saturday when there wasn't work on the weekends?

When Carl was younger, after he realized he didn't have a dad like most of his friends at school, whenever he happened to see a man about the same age as his mother (on the street, or at the grocery store—or on public transportation), he would wonder if the man was his father.

A little older than that, but still younger than he was now, Carl wondered if his father wasn't just some ordinary man (on the street, or at the grocery store—or on public transportation), but someone_ important _with some important reason for why he couldn't be there with his son, married to his son's mother. Maybe he was a spy, like James Bond, never in the same place for very long because he was too busy saving the world, using cool gadgets and drinking martinis (the grownup versions of milkshakes? Since they had to be shaken instead of stirred, like milkshakes are shaken and chocolate milk from the powder is stirred).

Now Carl didn't care where or who his father was. He knew he would never meet him.

Still, Carl did spend idle moments imagining how his mother and father met—and how he was conceived…

(Carl didn't know much about sex at his age (just that a sperm fertilizes an egg and then the woman is pregnant for nine months—how it got to that point, he wasn't quite sure) and all he knew of male and female interactions were how he saw men and women act on television and how he saw his friends' mothers and fathers act in person (and those were two very different dynamics)).

…and so Carl was in the midst of thinking about his parents having sex that the train crashed.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

The little shop was one of those mod-style, chic places that looked like a 1960's version of how the future was supposed to look; a minimalistic design of white walls and furniture with the only color in the room the jewel tones and grayscales of the business-casual clothes. It was a newer, contrasting addition to the neighborhood of tailoring and other clothing stores, that attempted to maintain relevance while also maintaining their expensiveness, exclusivity and Victorian aesthetic.

The owner was a tall, skinny Eurasian woman who got British citizenship as a perk of being one of August Moran's ex-girlfriends _(ex_ because Moran wouldn't sleep with a woman other than his _(also ex)_ wife on the British isles, even though he was no longer married). The owner didn't mind too much, though, because it was years later now and she owned her own shop—far better circumstances than constantly trying and failing to get a visa to study fashion in Paris.

In heels, she was just about six feet tall and so towered over both Jim and Molly as they entered the store and browsed—well, Jim browsed the men's clothes, Molly sat on one of the backless white benches pretending to check her phone (fashion had always made her feel uncomfortable(—and it combined with Jim Moriarty made her _even more_ uncomfortable)).

"I'd question your taste in men," the owner commented, offhandedly, "but I've made a similar mistake and it got me this far. Perhaps, your mistake will benefit you, too."

Molly glanced up at the woman and forced a smile. She had heard the older woman's heels click towards her across the white tile, but had hoped she would be ignored.

Still, the owner was right. Jim Moriarty was a _mistake._ But would the owner be right again? Would he be a beneficial mistake?

"I will question your taste in attire, though." The owner added, "Since I'd never make a similar mistake." She chuckled, "Please, let me choose an outfit for you."

The older woman wore a simple, tight black dress on her model-like frame that matched her black pumps and stood out against the white of the room and the rainbow of the clothing on hung on the racks and worn by the white model-like mannequins. Molly wore a black skirt and a purple buttondown; black, like the woman's dress, and purple like some of the purples visible in the stores.

Molly couldn't tell what was wrong with her clothes—and what was_ right _with the woman's. She looked the woman up and down, and then glanced down at her own body, confusedly.

"Your top is too baggy, you have the figure for a size smaller." The storeowner explained, answering the question that Molly hadn't needed to ask, "And the skirt should fall above your knees, not below, for that fit."

"Oh." Molly accepted, with a nod, and then returned to the nothing she was doing on her phone. She still didn't care about fashion.

Realizing this, the storeowner's shoes clicked away. Molly didn't look back up to try to find Jim until she heard that the woman had gone.

Glancing around the rows of clothes and creepy faceless mannequins, Molly couldn't see Jim. He was _gone!_

He must have slipped out the back while Molly was speaking with the owner of the store! She should've known the owner was just distracting her!

Molly jumped up from the bench, head turning back and forth as she scanned the room for any trace of the criminal she was supposed to be following. Just as she was about to do something…(do _what?_ Confront the owner? Run out of the store and sprint around London aimlessly on a futile search for Jim?)…she heard a chuckle.

It had emitted, muffled, from behind the white door of the miniature changing room (which looked more like a toilet stall). Looking down, she saw Jim's shoes, Jim's navy suitpants around his ankles and his skinny, hairy legs (it definitely looked like a toilet stall). The skinny, hairy legs stepped out of the shoes, and then the black socks stepped out of the fallen suitpants. After that, the legs and socks attempted to put a new pair of gray trousers.

"You must feel special." Jim's voice snarked, "First, you've got a man offering you a shopping spree and second, you have the pride to refuse it. Not many girls have either. Even less have _both._"

Without seeing his facial expression, Molly couldn't tell if Jim was being sarcastic or not.

So she replied, "I just don't like fancy things. I've only ever wanted a simple life." She shrugged, even though he couldn't see her.

Jim's voice snorted at that.

"Liar." He accused, "If that were true, you wouldn't be following me. You wouldn't be pinning over Sherlock. You wouldn't be following me _because_ you're pinning over Sherlock and hoping if you do something not simple he'll finally see you as more than just a simpleton he can get to do what he wants by flashing a fake smile in your direction." He snorted again, "_'only ever wanted a simple life?'_ that's the kind of lie simple people tell themselves in order to be happy with their simple, boring lives."

"You think you know me so well…" Molly muttered down at the mobilephone in her hands, its screen dark from inactivity.

"What was that?" Jim's voice called, although, from the tone of his voice he had probably actually heard her.

Molly sighed. There was no use in disagreeing with Jim. In his mind, he would always be right and so she should play along to keep him from seeing her as a threat.

"You're right." She tried again, louder, "I'm bored and seeing dead bodies in the morgue, without ever seeing how or who put them there, aren't enough anymore. Not since I met Sherlock."

"I feel the same way." Jim's voice matched, "Well, sort of. I'm tired of having bodies put in the morgue without ever having anyone seeing how I put them there."

He emerged from changing room (toilet stall), like the face in the moon from behind a dark cloud, weaving in and out between the rows of colored shirts and slacks until Molly could see him in his new outfit. He smiled and stretched out his arms, slightly.

"How do I look?" he asked rhetorically.

He was wearing a black buttondown tucked into gray trousers. No tie and no suit jacket, he looked more like a formal Jim from IT than Jim Moriarty (except his shirt wasn't too tight, and too short and his trousers weren't too baggy and falling down to reveal gay underwear).

"…um, nice." Molly answered. She wasn't going to lie, just because she didn't like what he did for a living (no, not for 'a living'—it wasn't something she could excuse as 'just a job', out of necessity or for money—he did it for fun, and that was_ worse _(but he still looked good)).

Jim didn't respond to her, instead he turned to the sound of clicking heels approaching.

"If you were taller, younger and more muscular, I'd have a job for you." the storeowner half-complimented, arms folded, returning into view, "…and it wouldn't just be modeling."

Jim smiled, "I'll take these. Clean ones, though. I haven't showered yet."

The owner nodded, turning and going to the back of the store to find the same shirt and same trousers in the same sizes for Jim. Jim looked back at Molly.

"So where are we off to next?" She inquired.

"Somewhere where I can take a shower." Jim stated. He turned and stepped back into the changing stall where he took off the new outfit and put back on his old one, navy blue suit, but minus the tie which he tucked into his suitpants pocket.

When he exited again, the storeowner was there waiting. She handed him a large white shoppingbag made of strong cardboard in which his new clothes were presumably contained. He took it, thanked the woman, and then glanced at Molly, indicating that she should follow him out of the store.

* * *

><p>(1989)<p>

Carl Powers was a good boy.

But he had to die.

He had seen something he shouldn't have seen, he knew something he shouldn't know. And so Carl Powers had to die.

Carl didn't remember falling asleep or even being asleep at all, but he woke up on the floor of the traincar with his head pounding and his vision blurry. He did remember being tossed around and felt like it was still happening. His ears were ringing but he could hear some screaming and other voices, some sirens in the distance and the sound of other trains.

He was in pain, but it was a distant pain; tightening and releasing like his headache and so he didn't feel like shouting or crying. He thought, for a second, that this was a bad dream but the taste of blood mixed with the saliva in his mouth told him that it was not

He tried to move, but couldn't. It was like he was temporarily paralyzed after waking up from a nightmare.

…_no._ It was like a weight was holding him down. The weight of a larger, heavier human being on top of him.

He tried to look around, but the traincar was blurry and his range of vision from the floor was very limited. The only forms he could make out were other fallen passengers and his backpack that had been flung to the other side of the car. There was broken glass on the floor.

Feeling tired, Carl closed his eyes and went back to sleep…

When he woke up again, he was on a bed in a long white room full of curtains and other bed.

A hospital.

There were distant noises; voices (talking, screaming, crying) and machinery (beeping, whirring, buzzing) and movement (running, walking, thrashing). But they were far enough away, or at least portioned off, that the room was Carl was in was relatively still and silent.

He wasn't attached to any wires or tubes, and he wasn't alone. Other passengers from the traincar lay on other hospital beds, sleeping.

Once again, the important man was across from him. A curtain half enclosed the man, but Carl could see him lying asleep on a hospitalbed, his briefcase on a chair next to him with his pager sitting ontop of it. His suit was ripped and there was a red stain (blood!) on his white buttondown. His face and neck were covered in scrapes and newly forming bruises.

Checking his own clothing, Carl saw no rips and feeling his face he touched no scrapes (although there were tender spots that could become bruises).

Shakily, Carl attempted to move. He felt sore, and his head still ached, but he was able to twist his legs to hang off the edge of the bed and slowly lowered them, scooting down, until his feet touched the tiled floor.

It didn't hurt that badly until Carl stood fully, his weight held up by his legs rather than the bed. Still, on unsteady legs, he managed to cross the room until he reached the hospitalbed of the important man…and the briefcase and pager sitting on the chair beside him.

Carl had always been curious, as most children are, and he wanted to know what was in the briefcase and on the pager.

He picked up the pager first. It was the first time he'd ever held one. A few of the students at his school and more of their parents owned pagers, and so Carl had wanted one since he'd seen them in other people's hands and heard them beep in other people's pockets. (Of course, when he had asked his mother for one, she'd refused to buy it for him.) He clicked the largest button he saw, presumably the 'on button' and the tiny rectangular screen displayed the most recent message.

_Meeting. 10:30. _

So the important man was on the train because he had to attend a meeting and it must have been an important meeting because it was on a Saturday.

Carl glanced over at the man, to make sure he was still asleep and not watching him nose through his belongings. The man's eyes were closed. The wounds on his face were still open.

Just as Carl was about to try to open the briefcase, he heard footsteps approaching from the hall outside the long room.

Quickly, Carl rushed back to his bed, legs aching, hopped back up on it and closed his eyes. He held them loosely closed (too tight and it would be obvious he was forcing them closed, he'd learned this when pretending to be asleep in his room when his mother came to check on him) as the footsteps entered the room. They stopped, Carl wasn't sure where, but he could hear motion; the rustling of fabric and the screech of plastic against tile.

That was when he realized the pager was still clasped in his now sweaty hand.

What if the person in the room worked with the important man and had come here to see why he hadn't shown up for the meeting, and then saw that the pager gone? What if it beeped and the person thought Carl had stolen it? (Carl was honestly going to give it back, but if his mother found out he had taken it she would believe he had intended to steal it since she knew how much he wanted one and so he would be in big trouble.)

Carl peeked one of his eyes open, peering across the room to see the back of a man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt (hood pulled up), trainers and jeans. He couldn't see his face, but he was holding two gloved fingers up to the neck of the important man—_checking his pulse._

After holding his fingers there for a reasonable period of time, the hooded man removed them, used the same gloved hand to grab the briefcase, turned and then hurried out of the long white room.

Once he was gone, Carl sat up.

_That man had stolen the briefcase! _

Carl returned to the important man's side and, just like the hooded man had done, held two fingers against the important man's neck to check his pulse.

…there was no pulse.

An involuntary shiver shook Carl.

He was touching a _dead man_. He had taken a _dead man'_s pager.

Sick to his stomach (in addition to having a head and full body ache) Carl wanted to go home.

He started to run. Out the door the hooded man had gone and down the long white hall to the left (since he was one of the few left-handed kids and so always preferred the left sides of things), past other long white rooms full of hospitalbeds and curtains.

He turned a corner and saw the hooded man. The briefcase belonging to the important (_dead)_ man hung from his hand. In his other hand was a payphone, attached by cord to box the wall.

"Yes, he's dead. I got what you asked. But I couldn't find the pager. It must have gone missing in the crash." The hooded man spoke into the phone, "I'll bring the briefcase to you right away."

He hung up the phone and turned his hooded head…and looked right into Carl's wide-eyed face.

The two stared at each other for a moment, both in shock, and then the hooded man began to move, striding towards Carl. Carl turned and sprinted back down the hallway he had come from, and then past the room he had woken up in.

He dodged and darted (legs burning and head pounding in concert with each drumbeat step) around nurses, doctors, and visitors of the hospital, who were confused and concerned at the sight of a boy running in panic through the building but were to slow and too busy with other patients to be able to stop him. Every so often, Carl would glance back to see if the hooded man, who he'd now seen the face of, was behind him.

The hooded man was walking so as not to arouse suspicion towards him and when Carl had finally outran him he slowed down, finding himself in the hospital lobby in front of the main entrance. He could run out the doubledoors right now if he wanted to, escape from the hooded man, and the hospital, and the train crash.

Just as he was about to do so, as the plump older lady at the frontdesk eyed him with concern and suspicion but was talking on the phone and so could not say anything, Carl saw his mother jog through the automaticdoors. She gasped in surprise and relief when she saw him, dashing over to his side and bending down to pull him into a too tight embrace that added to the pain Carl's body was already experiencing.

"Oh, Carl! Oh my goodness!" she cried, "Thank god you're alright! I saw the crash on the news—I was so worried!"

"I'm okay, mum." Carl stated, as calmly as he could. If he showed how scared and in pain he was, his mother would continue to see him as a little boy.

Still, he knew no matter what he said or how he acted, he would never be allowed to take the train alone ever again. Even when he was grown up.

"_Excuse me!" _

The sound of a woman's voice turned both Carl and his mother's heads towards the source. It was the lady sitting at the desk. She had just set down the landline with the curly white cord and so could finally address the unaccompanied minor who had been sprinting through the hospital.

Carl's mother rose to her full height, facing the older woman. "Yes?" she asked.

"Are you the boy's mother?" the lady asked in return.

"Yes." Carl's mother repeated, with a nod.

"He was unidentified earlier." The lady informed, "You'll need to prove you're his legal guardian and fill out some paperwork before you can check him out."

"Alright..." Carl's mother accepted, tentatively.

Carl tensed. He couldn't stay here at the hospital. The hooded man would find him! All of a sudden, he felt like being—no, _acting_—like a little kid again.

"I want to go home, mum." He murmured, pathetically, tugging on his mother's coat, "I just want to go home…"

"I know, I do too." She agreed, "But we have to follow the rules."

And so Carl sat at one of the chairs pulled up to the lady's desk while his mother filled out the paperwork with a borrowed pen, eyes alert, making sure that the hooded man had not located him.

He didn't.

...

…_or did he? _

From behind a windowed-door to a stairwell, the August Moran stood holding the briefcase and watching the nervous boy and his relieved mother (who had gorgeous orange-colored hair, even in the messy ponytail it had been rushed into) at the desk with the one of the hospital receptionists.

When they had finished and left, August pulled down his hood releasing his short lightbrown hair and took off the sweatshirt, which was too baggy for him, and made him look lower-class (and so threatening)—_and made him feel like death in a black cloak, after what he had done…_

He dropped the sweatshirt onto the tile floor, leaving it there and pushed open the door and approached the receptionist.

"Hello there, ma'am," he greeted, smiling and extending a hand to shake.

The older lady glanced up at him from her swivelchair, seeming a bit confused, but she politely shook his hand and smiled back. "How can I help you?" she asked.

"That little boy, he wouldn't have happened to be one of the victims of the train crash, would he?" August asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say…" the receptionist refused to answer, "You're not a reporter are you. I've been told not to allow press into the hospital."

"No, no I'm not a reporter." August laughed, "I'm a solicitor, actually. That crash was due to negligence and a lawsuit is in order. The boy was one of the lucky ones. People were severely injured, someone even _died_—"

"More than one person." The receptionist corrected, solemnly, "The hospital's not releasing all the details yet, not even to us rank and file, but there was more than one who were dead at the scene…and think more died of injuries after they arrived here."

An involuntary shiver shook August.

_He hadn't realized it was more than just the investment banker who had died…_

_(And all for a damn piece of paper (and money, always money…))_

His fist tightened around the handle of the briefcase. He swallowed, and was suddenly sick to his stomach.

This was (partially) his fault.

"I hadn't realized it was that bad…" he sighed, "I'm sure most of the victims are in no state to talk to me…But that boy seemed fine."

"He was in the second car." The receptionist explained, "He was jolted about, but he was found under another passenger who'd been thrown ontop of him and had shielded from the debris. That saved his life…but it killed the other passenger."

August nodded gravely. He knew.

"It's a tragedy." He said, "But it would have been far more tragic had the child died. What was his name, again? And his mother's? I'd like to get in touch with them about the lawsuit."

The receptionist glanced down at the papers on her desk, rustling through them until she found the right one.

"Carl Powers." She stated, "That's the boy's name. And his mother's is…let me see…Beryl. Beryl Powers."

"And the father's?" August followed-up.

"There is none." The reception shook her head, "It's a shame…It's hard for a young boy to grow up without a male role model." She straightened the paper by tapping them against the surface of the desk and then set them back down in perfect order.

August thought of his own son; just a toddler but already the entire world. He wondered how anyone could, short of death, abandon their child.

And he wanted to go home.

…but there was still work to be done.

"Thank you for your help, ma'am." He thanked the receptionist, then turned and left through the sliding doubledoors.

* * *

><p>(January, 2012)<p>

The sliding doubledoors opened to allow Lord August Moran to enter the lift inside the building where his office was. After he had already pressed the chrome button for the groundfloor and the silvery doors were reclosing a foot stepped between them, preventing them from touching and forcing them to reopen.

The foot was attached to a long, skinny leg wearing a black suitpants. The tall, black-suited man entered the elevator and reached a long, skinny arm over to press the 'door close' button. The doors closed behind him and he stood staring down at Moran.

The distance between them was uncomfortably nonexistent. Moran could feel the other man's hot breath shoot from his nostrils like fire from a dragon.

Still, Moran didn't (couldn't) back up because there was nowhere to go and even if there was, he refused to be intimidated by a strange man's strange 'elevator pitch'.

Moran sighed.

"You're not the government, are you?" he asked, "Because I work for the government and I don't recognize your face."

"No, not the government." The tall man confirmed, in an accent Moran recognized as Danish due to much foreign travel, "Just a fellow namesake of the great Roman conqueror."

_Named after Augustus Caesar, Danish, middle-aged, tall…_This man had to be Charles Magnussen of the CAM Media Corporation. _But why was he here and what did he want? _He worked in entertainment not international relations and internal politics…

"I see..." Moran allowed.

"You should fire your personal assistant." Magnussen recommended, "Well, she's really _my _personal assistant, actually, so you'd just be returning to me. She told me about your conversation with Molly Hooper; about your connection to the criminal James Moriarty and who he truly is." He paused to chuckle, "You had your assistant search the pathologist for a wire, but never considered that she herself could be listening at the door. I wonder…have you enjoyed her, too? Or do you restrict your fun to when you're abroad on business? That would make sense. After all, we Danish and Irish never had the chance to rape, pillage and colonize like the British did. Now we must make up for lost time, and live up to our name."

"This lift will eventually run out of oxygen." Moran commented, "Are you going to waste it all on bullshit? Or is there a point to this? Because there are other things Roman are known for besides conquering…"

Magnussen chuckled.

"You think I'm propositioning you, Mr. Moran?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow and then leaning his head towards Moran's, "…You're _right_."

"I am?" Moran snorted, so taken aback that he pulled his head away from Magnussen's and blinked in shock, "…well, no thank you, then. Sorry, but I'm not gay."

"Neither am I." Magnussen responded, matter-of-factly, (to which Moran practically sighed in relief), "…But I want to be your date."

"My 'date'? To what?"

"To Mycroft Holmes' bi-monthly meetings."

Magnussen smirked.

Moran scowled.

"I don't know how you found out about those," Moran refused, "but someone like you, even with all your money and media influence, simply isn't _important_ enough to get an invitation."

"And what makes _you_ so important?" Magnussen countered, "You're not 'old money'. Indeed, you attended one of the better English universities, but that doesn't make you any less the son of a poor Irish immigrant who worked at the docks like a slave until it killed him. Funny, he betrayed his country to be a loyal subject of the queen and he refused to go on strike when all the union men did to be a loyal company man. Seems he_ liked_ being a slave."

"I see you've read an old campaign speech of mine." Moran stated, "Do you know anything about me that isn't public record?"

"I know it was 'Mr. Banks' who financed your initial campaign." Magnussen declared, "By the way, if you tell me his real name I'll stop bothering you and bother _him _instead."

"No one knows his real name." Moran said.

His breath had caught in his chest at the mention of the pseudonym and his muscles had tensed.

This was _serious,_ now. Magnussen wasn't just part of the eccentric but harmless wealthy (like Willy Wonka or Kim Kardashian) who did as they pleased as if they owned the world, while not directly hurting anyone (though, indirectly, getting and having that much money always hurt someone else, as Moran had seen in the 'third world' countries he had visited)…he was a rich man who wanted to own the world and knew he had to take it—_conquer_ it—first in order to do so.

Moran glanced up at the ceiling of the brown and silver lift. There was another door, small and square, but there was no way to escape through it without standing on the shoulders of the man he wanted to escape from.

"Then you're still my toy to play with." Magnussen decided, matter-of-factly, "If you bring me along to Mycroft Holmes' next meeting, I won't tell your master 'Mr. Banks' about how you faked Carl Power's death instead of killing him like he ordered you to."

Moran scoffed.

"What are you talking about?" he attempted, shrugging and raising his eyebrow in false confusion, "Who is 'Carl Powers'?" Now he feared that Magnussen was concealing a recording-device, hoping to find the next big story for the news branch of his media company.

Magnussen chortled, half stroking his beard and half covering his mouth as he shook his head in amusement.

"You're wondering how I learned of 'Mr. Banks' aren't you?" he assumed, "Not from your assistant, because she didn't know. Nobody knew. Not your wife, not your son, not even Moriarty—or should I say 'Carl Powers'. So _how?_ How did I know?"

"…the paper trail…" Moran stated, with another sigh.

Why, over twenty years later, did dark truth he thought he had hidden in the shadow following behind him have to come to light? Dealing with Jim Moriarty, the second biggest shame of his, was more than enough…

"Yes." Magnussen affirmed, "…But not the one you think. No, it wasn't bank receipts and wire-transfer records, it was the _newspapers…_A devastating train crash in the middle of a strike—I was still in Denmark at the time, but following British currents events, it seemed too political to be just an accident. And sure enough, it was later reported that an investment banker for a prominent firm died in the crash. His wife told the press he had left because he was called into the office for an unscheduled emergency meeting via his pager, his coworkers told the press that they never held a meeting that morning. His pager, and his briefcase, were never recovered. And a few weeks after that, the entire firm was bankrupt and it got absorbed by another. It could not have been a coincidence. It was too convenient for someone—I had no reason to wonder who at the time—but when I acquired my company, renamed it, and moved its headquarters to London, I _did."_

"Why did you?" Moran questioned, already guessing the answer.

"Because I knew it was information I could use." Magnussen explained, "In fact, I'm using it right now, with you." He smiled, "How do you think I came to own my current corporation? I didn't build it myself, of course, that would've taken too much time, too much work and, most importantly, too much money that I didn't have. So, I took the company from someone who did have it. All needed was one secret—one pressure point to push—and the old man gave in; shattered like an expensive vase in front of me and signed away ownership of his media corporation."

"And what was it?" Moran inquired, "The secret?"

Magnussen shook his head, again chuckling. "It wouldn't be worth anything to me if I told you." he replied, "And you know that. Just like you know that because I know _your_ secret, Mr. Moran, I can shatter you like an expensive vase in front of me if I want to."

Moran shook his head, chuckling, too, at that. "You know so much about me already, _Mr. Magnussen,_ that you should know that's already happened." He returned, "Sorry, but Jim Moriarty beat you to it. He told my wife how—_and how many times and with how many women_—I'd cheated on her. So she divorced me and my son stopped speaking to me. I'm already damaged goods. My current position's by appointment and lasts for life, you can't take my job from me. And since that's all I have left, what can you take?"

"You said it yourself during your conversation with Molly Hooper." Magnussen reminded, "James Moriarty is 'all' you 'have'. And I can take him away from you with just one call to 'Mr. Banks'."

"And how will you contact him?" Moran retorted, folding his arms, "You don't know his real name, no one does, and it's not like he has a phone number or an address—I've never even seen his face." he threw his hands up and snorted.

"You forgot about the paper trail." Magnussen said, smirking and raising one finger knowingly. "What banking firm bought the bankrupt one the dead banker worked for? Who got _rich?_ Well, rich-_er._ 'Mr. Banks' named himself after what he is. It won't be hard to find him. There are only a very few at the very top and we know that's where he's hiding."

"He doesn't let people know his secrets." Moran warned, "He'll kill you. Not himself, of course. But he'll get someone to do it."

"It won't be _you."_ Magnussen sneered, "Not after he hears how you disobeyed him and have been lying to him all this time. He'll kill _you_ first for that—and kill the only one you have left, too." He stepped closer to Moran, so close that the tips of their shoes were touching, stretching out his arms to make his presence even larger in the lift; wooden and metal, like a coffin. "…So now you have to choose. Which master do you fear more? 'Mr. Banks' or Mycroft Holmes? If you bring me to Holmes' meeting, he'll never trust you again and so you'll lose some power. But if you don't, 'Mr. Banks' will find out that you never killed Carl Powers and that he now goes by the name James Moriarty, and so 'Banks' will pay someone—probably a naïve young man in need of funding, like you once were—to kill you both. Both possibilities happen because I make them happen. So there really is no choice, is there? You have to fear _me._ Because _I'm_ your master."

Moran stared for a moment, silent, gaping in surprise at the directness (and creepiness) of Magnussen's words.

Then he began to laugh.

It wasn't sarcastic like the earlier snorts. It was sincere, rumbling laughter erupting out of his mouth from deep down in his lungs as if Magnussen had told a silly joke.

Magnussen now raised his eyebrow, backing away from Moran slightly in, matching Moran's just-moments-earlier surprise.

After the laughter had continued long enough to make the situation of two adult men trapped in lift together threatening each other _even more_ awkward, it finally subsided.

"You know about Jim Moriarty, that he used to be Carl Powers and that I helped him fake his death," Moran addressed, still chuckling, "…but you've never met him, have you?"

"…no." Magnussen confirmed, _"Why?"_

Moran grinned.

"If you ever do meet him, you'll know why I'm laughing at you." he said.

He then pushed past the long black-suited arms of Magnussen to press the 'door-open' button. When the silvery doubledoors slid open he exited the lift, leaving Magnussen standing there watching him go.

The smart, but basically helpless little boy that Carl Powers used to be was long gone. Jim Moriarty was genius and not only was he not helpless, he was _dangerous._

Jim wasn't something that Magnussen or Mr. Banks or whoever could threaten to get Moran to do what they wanted—he _was _the threat. And, although Moran had never condoned Jim's violent crimes, he would use him against Magnussen and Mr. Banks and whoever tried to threaten them.

In the stairwell of the office building, Moran pulled out his mobilephone to dial the number of the world's only consulting criminal.

* * *

><p>(1989)<p>

Carl Powers was a good boy.

He shouldn't have to die. At least that's what August Moran thought.

After the hospital visit, August spoke again to the mysterious man who called himself 'Mr. Banks' (although that was obviously not his real name) on another payphone. It was outdoors, just down the street from the London hospital the victims of the train crash were rushed too since they were closer to London than Brighton at the time of the crash.

The briefcase had been delivered to the location Mr. Banks had told August to drop it off in (hiding in a nearby phonebox, August saw that a bike messenger had picked it up) and half the money had already been transferred into August's campaign account, but the missing pager was delaying the second half of the payment. The payment wasn't only for the briefcase and pager, it was also for arranging the train crash that made it possible for August to steal the briefcase and pager.

Someone else (August didn't know who) had gotten the investment banker's pager number and paged him to attend the imaginary morning meeting in the city when he was safely sleeping at his weekend home with his wife.

A couple hours later he was dead.

August had never wanted that.

Mr. Banks had told that him nobody would die, that nobody would get seriously hurt, 'just a few scrapes and bruises here and there for the greater good' (and the greater _greed)_. And August, never having been good at science—and really wanting that money because he could do 'so much good' as a politician, and could 'help so many people during these difficult economic times' (or,_ being greedy)_—had believed him. He had been _stupid _(and _greedy). _

Now, multiple people were dead. Nobody knew how many yet; the news outlets and even the hospital employees hadn't gotten the full count since all the families hadn't been located and contacted yet.

August knew it was his fault.

…Only _partially,_ of course, because had he not agreed to requests of the voice over the telephone (and the proof in the form of wired money) someone else would have…

But was there really such a thing as _partial_ fault? He _had _agreed to the plan and, more importantly, he had carried it out. Now people were dead and their deaths were on his conscience.

That was why when Mr. Banks asked August to kill the only survivor from the second traincar—a little boy named Carl Powers—August knew he couldn't do it. He _wouldn't._ He had a young son himself. How could he kill a little boy?

(It was his fault Mr. Banks knew about Carl Powers, too. _Completely_ (not partially), this time. During their discussion on the phone about the missing pager, he had mentioned that there had been a boy in the same room as the investment banker. And so, despite August's assurances that a child wouldn't understand and could never be a threat, Mr. Banks decided that the boy had to die.)

But August didn't tell Mr. Banks that he wasn't going to kill Carl Powers. Because had he not agreed to that request (and the extra money Mr. Banks was offering) someone else would have.

And so, August was going to fake Carl Powers' death and, in doing so, save his life.

A few weeks later, after the newspapers stopped printing and the TV news stopped airing stories about the train crash (and after August had promised to Mr. Banks that he would kill Carl Powers), August just happened to be browsing through a department store in Brighton where Carl's mother, Beryl Powers, worked selling not very expensive jewelry to people who still often had to pay in installments.

He was wearing a cheap pinstriped suit he'd just purchased in the men's department downstairs so as to look as if he was the kind of person who would actually shop in a store like this—which he had been until his campaign manager had told him he needed to dress better ('people who look poor don't win elections') and Mr. Banks had deposited enough money into his account for him to do so.

It only took a few minutes of August circling the fortress of glass cases full of shiny metals pretending to be gold and silver for her to look up from the book she was discretely reading half-under the cashregister and notice him. She set down her book and approached him.

"May I help you?" Beryl asked, smiling politely.

"Ah, yes! Thank you!" August accepted, smiling enthusiastically. (He'd been practicing, politics and all…)

He turned to face her.

He had been watching her out of the corner of his eye the whole time, but now seeing her face to face in the black skirtsuit she wore that contrasted glowing her pale skin (Irish, he assumed (even without the usual freckles) from the hinted accent—he'd learned how to recognize hidden Irish accents at an early age from listening to his father) and made her copper hair shine brighter than any of the jewelry in the glass cases.

"So are you looking for your wife?" Beryl followed-up.

…oh right…

His _wife._

The intelligent, loving, _strong_ woman who was the mother of his child and was working a part-time job, raising their son anddealing with all his political ambitions (and the time spent away from the family that came from those).

_Her._

Instinctively, absentmindedly, August reached into the pocket of his pinstriped suitjacket and felt the gold ring he'd slipped off his second-to-last finger and hidden in there. He clutched it in his hands…

…and then let it go.

"Yes I am." He chuckled, "And I think I see her right in front of me."

Beryl smiled again. But this smile was more than just polite.

"Oh? Is she behind me?" she returned, turning her head to glance behind her and chuckling herself.

When she had turned back to face August again, he smiled again. And this smile was more than just enthusiastic. It was _genuine._

"Your name is…Beryl?" he checked, looking at her nametag (chest), "How appropriate. A woman named after gem working in the jewelry section."

"I've heard that one before." Beryl dismissed, with a cheeky smile, "Multiple times, actually. Is your name as unoriginal as your line?"

"No, actually, mine is relatively unique" August laughed, "I'm named after a month. Want to guess which one?"

"It's April, isn't it?" Beryl joked, "Or May."

"August." August corrected, "August Moran."

He extended a hand to shake. But when Beryl took that hand, he pulled hers up to his lips to kiss it.

(It was very cheesy, of course, but it had worked on his wife back during university and he'd only ever dated his wife so cheesy was what he knew how to do.)

So she wasn't completely perfect after all… She had dry skin on her hand.

He was able to breathe again when Beryl didn't instantly jerk it back. He released her hand slowly and then took a deep breath.

"…Nice to meet you, Mr. Moran…" Beryl said, a bit bewildered. She was flattered, but suspicious. Men who were too dramatic could _not_ be trusted.

"Please, call me August." August spoke the standard request.

"Alright…August." Beryl spoke the standard acceptance. Then added, "How may I help you today, August?"

"You could have dinner with me after work." August declared, matter-of-factly.

"You're very forward, aren't you, August?" Beryl commented; half teasing, half accusing. "Just because we know each other's names doesn't mean we're not strangers. And I don't have dinner with strangers." She crossed her arms, leaving one hand visible while the other was tucked into the inside of her elbow. "…And even if I did, I couldn't go tonight because I can't find a babysitter for my son on such short notice."

"You have a son?" August feigned surprise with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I do." Beryl nodded, proudly—but not only proud because she had a smart and athletic boy for a son, she was also proud because her son was the barrier that protected her from all the bad men in the world (like his father) who weren't ready for a serious commitment.

"What's his name?" August asked, "How old is he?"

"Carl." Beryl answered, "And he's eleven."

"Eleven should be old enough to fend for himself for a few hours," August reasoned, "if _all _we do is eat…" he chuckled.

"I thought so, too, not very long ago." Beryl agreed, "…but the one time I left him alone—let him take the train by himself for the first time, it crashed! So I'm not letting him out of sight for anything other than school and swim practice from now on."

"He was in the crash?!" August exclaimed, pretending to be taken aback, "My god. Is he alright?" His _concern,_ however was not pretend. Carl hadn't looked hurt and he had been able to run away from August in the hospital, but not all wounds were physical and seeing that others had died while he had lived could emotionally scar him.

"He was in the second car." Beryl recounted, "He's fine but…he's still trying to process it all. He's seen the news, he knows others died, I didn't try to hide that from him and being brave about it—at least when I'm around. He's a boy, after all, almost a teenager—even if I don't want to admit it. He wants to be tough." She laughed, soft and sad.

"Yeah, I was that age once, I know what it's like." August sympathized, "…And it seems like your son Carl deserves a nice dinner for being such a good sport about what happened. May I take both of you out tonight?"

Beryl sighed.

"You seem like a nice man, August, you really do…" she replied, "But I don't know you. And I can't introduce my son to some man I just met."

"Please, make an exception." August appealed, almost desperately, "I'm not asking anything else of you. And if you and your son never want to see me again, then you won't have to."

"Why do you want to take us out so badly?" Beryl questioned, eyes narrowed and voice now totally mistrustful, "What do you really want? In her heels (a mandatory part of the dresscode, though she preferred flats) she backed away from him, pulling her already folded arms more tightly around herself protectively. Her son wasn't here with her now, and his existence wasn't deterring the man in front of her.

"…nothing." August shrugged, evenly, opening his hands and arms so that the faced the bright lights shining down from the ceiling, in physical demonstration that he had nothing to hide—but also that he wanted to _receive_ something. "I just happened to see you on my way out of the store, thought that you're beautiful, and got an idea. I'm sorry if I offended you, or made you uncomfortable. I'll go now, if you want me to…"

He turned to leave, smiling apologetically and halfheartedly…

"_Wait!" _

He heard Beryl call after him and so turned back around to face her, eyes widened in contrived surprise as if he hadn't known that she would feel guilty for distrusting and refusing him, and so change her mind.

"I suppose I can make an exception, just this once." Beryl relented, "It's been awhile since Carl and I have gone out to eat. We can meet you at the restaurant, after I'm done with work and he's done with practice. Where do you want to go?"

August smiled.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

Once again, Molly was waiting awkwardly while Jim was in another room. This time, however, she was standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall, and he was in a lockerroom instead of a changing room the size of a toilet stall.

The wall was white and the floor was tile, but this was not a hospital lockerroom. This was a pool lockerroom. And not just_ any_ pool lockerroom, this was _the_ pool lockerroom. The pool where Sherlock Holmes (and John Watson) had first confronted Jim Moriarty (as described on John Watson's blog post 'The Great Game' (which Molly had read multiple times)).

Molly wondered if Jim knew the owner of this pool, too. Sure, he'd swam here (and 'died' here) as Carl Powers, but that was decades ago. He had somehow managed to not only sneak himself in but also a large amount of gunmen into the large pool and gym complex. Doing so would've been easier had he known the owner (and that nobody, not even security guards or janitors, would be here that night).

The day so far had mellowed from the intense, nervous buildup towards the meeting with Jim, which wasn't as scary as she thought it would be, into basically just hanging out, it's like they were finally having that third date. That's how Molly would think of it from now on, to keep herself calm and confident.

It wasn't exactly like hanging out with the most popular boy in school or meeting a celebrity, even if you never liked the person they were 'famous' and so there was a bit of awe that came with being in their presence…and it wasn't the same awe that came from being in Sherlock's presence, either, because she really did like him, he wasn't famous or popular (yet), and the awe came from his mind not from his social status (plus she and Sherlock had never spent time together). With Jim it was somewhere in between, she was in awe of Jim's mind but in fear of his 'accomplishments', he was suave like the popular boy but he wasn't a celebrity.

But she had spent time with him before, not knowing who he was, acting or not she had seen him be normal and he was acting somewhat normal now, too. The flutters and flustering of spending time with someone more powerful, were quickly wearing off. Jim was just Jim.

But what did that make her? Not just Molly. She wasn't a 'mob wife', like that had already determined, since she wasn't his girlfriend, and she wasn't Bonnie, since she wasn't involved in his crimes. An undercover agent, investigating a criminal, perhaps? No, that would still make her 'involved' in the crimes to keep her cover and besides Jim knew what she was doing. A neutral photojournalist interviewing the 'enemy' in a war, maybe? No, Molly wasn't neutral.

…_So what was she then? _

Bored, that's what. Bored of waiting. Molly had been idling in front of the wooden door with the stickfigure of a man for almost twenty minutes now. Jim took long showers (at least for a guy)…

…or maybe he had actually slipped out the back and gotten away from her, for real this time.

Jim had gone into the men's lockerroom, which Molly wasn't allowed to enter as a woman, but just as she was deciding that if he didn't come out in twenty more minutes she was going to something… (do what? Barge in there shouting his name? Ask a man going in or out to look him? Get an employee to look for him or page him over the intercom?)… she heard the door swing open.

Looking up, expecting disappointment in the form of some random man in an ill-fitting bathing suit or partially wet clothing, she saw Jim exit the lockerroom in the outfit he had just bought at the clothing store. In one hand was the white bag, which now presumably contained his old clothes.

His hair was wet and his clothes were crisp and new; the only thing that was…_off _was the lengthening stubble on his face (and the dark, heavy bags under his eyes). Sleep and a shave could fix both, but Jim didn't have a razor or a bed with him at the moment.

"You don't shave your face, but you shave your chest?" Molly teased, cautiously.

"You don't like it?" Jim questioned, genuinely taken aback, "I thought that's what the kids are into these days. That and sixpacks. But sixpacks are a little harder to get than a bare chest."

"I'm not a 'kid'." Molly countered, matter-of-factly but timidly, "I'm a grown woman. That's why I don't like bare chests." She quickly added, "—No offense to any grown women that do, of course, but I don't."

Jim snickered.

"The whole 'bald everywhere' thing's a fashion industry kink, anyway." He dismissed, "The beauty standard is the old Greek and Roman way—looking as close to a skinny, hairless teenage boy as possible. You've got the skinny thing going for you…but you've got the wrong parts and too much covering them, if you know what I mean."

"I'm skinny because I'm a vegetarian…and I don't eat bread or pasta on the weekdays." Molly explained, almost defensively, "And the other thing…well, I'm a grown woman. I don't want to look like a little girl." She quickly added, again, "—but no offense to any grown women that do, of course, but I just don't."

"_I_ don't want you to, either." Jim supported, chuckling, "I'm not a gay man—well, not a _fashion industry_ gay man, that is. Though Sherlock is tall and skinny enough to be a male model…"

"Do you think he shaves his chest, too?" Molly wondered aloud.

Jim shrugged. "I dunno…but I'd love to find out." He grinned.

"Me too." Molly nodded in wholehearted agreement.

Then they laughed together.

This was…_nice,_ actually. Just like two normal friends hanging out. Maybe Meena was right about every single woman needing a 'gay best friend'…It was easy to forget who Jim really was, what he was really capable of, when he looked and acted like a regular guy. So easy that Molly almost forgot her purpose for meeting with Jim and following him around.

_Almost._

* * *

><p>(1989)<p>

Carl Powers was a good boy.

And he was hungry.

He usually took the bus home where he was greeted by his mother at the nearest bus stop with a snack (usually some kind of sandwich), but today his mother had surprised him outside of the school (where he was a 'hero' now for surviving the train crash—even though he had done absolutely nothing heroic (and stolen a pager from an important (dead) man that he now brought with him everywhere)) when he had finished swimming practice. They had taken the bus together, not to their flat in Tower Hill, but to somewhere closer to the school still in Brighton. It was a restaurant.

Despite it being a restaurant, and despite the fact that Carl was hungry, his mother did not allow them to go inside the restaurant and sit down yet.

"What are we waiting for?" Carl snapped, "Why aren't we going in."

"Be patient." His mother chided, "We're waiting for someone."

Carl folded his arms and trudged over to sulk by the restaurant door, leaning against its stone front wall next to the framed menu posted on it. He pretended to be reading it so that his mother wouldn't further chastise him for having a 'bad attitude'.

Finally, after about five minutes (which felt far longer to young Carl), a black limousine pulled up at the curb in front of the restaurant.

Carl's mother tried to ignore it at first and Carl tried to do the same (though less inconspicuously) watching it out of the corner of their eyes (since it was rude to stare, even though it was rare to see such a fancy car in this part of the city) until a man stepped out of it.

"Beryl." The man addressed.

Carl's mother turned and gaped in shock, "August?!"

Carl turned and gaped in shock, too.

This man (apparently named August—though Carl doubted it was his real name) was the hooded man! He was no longer wearing a hooded sweatshirt, now dressed in a black suit (much like the important (dead) man had worn) and tie, but it was most definitely him.

The man was here to kill him, Carl knew it,just like he had killed the important man (who had turned out to be some kind of banker). He was probably a hitman, Carl guessed, like the ones in the movies, working for someone that wanted the important man's money (or maybe revenge on him for some reason).

"Who is he?" Carl questioned his mother. Carl hadn't told his mother about stealing the pager and being chased through the hospital by the hooded man, and he knew it was too late to tell her now since it could endanger them both.

"He's the someone we were waiting for." His mother answered, "His name is Mr. Moran."

'August'/'Mr. Moran' (or whatever his real name was) smiled at Carl.

"Hello, Carl." He greeted, "Your mother's told me all about you. It's nice to meet you." He extended a hand to shake.

Carl knew he could scream, cry, and try to explain to his mother who this man truly was—_a killer_—but he also knew it would all be laughed off by the two adults as the confused antics of a traumatized child.

And so Carl had to deal with this maturely, intelligently. Like a grown man would.

"Hello, Mr. Moran." He returned, taking the man's hand and shaking it as firmly as he could like the boys were told to do in school.

"Why the limousine?" His mother asked Moran.

"I travel in style." Moran shrugged (he really preferred cabs, as they were cheaper, but today he was showing off for a woman (and her son) so he had booked it using his campaign account full of the money Mr. Banks had paid him).

"When are we going to go eat?" Carl groaned. As afraid as he was of Moran, he was still hungry.

"Carl, don't be rude." His mother scolded, "We'll go in when we're all ready."

"Actually," Moran countered, "I was hoping to take you two somewhere else. After all, what's the use of renting this thing if I don't get to give you a ride in it?" he gestured to the stalling vehicle.

"If you can afford _that,_ what were you doing in a department store?" Carl's mother inquired, also pointing towards the limo and raising her eyebrow.

'_finding a way to get to me and kill me',_ Carl thought to himself…

"I shop at department stores so I can afford that." Moran reasoned, jokingly, "So… you two getting in?"

Carl glanced up at his mother, "Come on, mum." He begged, "I'm really hungry. Can't we just eat here?"

"Oh, I'm sure you can wait just a little longer." His mother hushed him, then turning back to Moran and excusing, "You know growing boys, they're always hungry."

She was clearly embarrassed by Carl at this point. Carl felt a small sense of victory for now she knew how he felt when she insisted upon riding the series of buses (they didn't take the train anymore) to practice with him on Saturdays, cheering him on through the entire thing, and then toweling him off when he got out of the pool in front of the other boys.

"I'm hungry too." Moran empathized, "So let's go." He started back towards the limousine pulled up to the curb and got back in, scooting over to make room for the mother and son.

Eagerly, Carl's mother followed him in.

Reluctantly, Carl followed her in.

* * *

><p>(April, 2011)<p>

"Whose flat is this?" Molly asked as Jim pulled the key from his trouserpocket and used it to unlock the red-painted door. They were on the fifth floor of a nice building in London. "I know it's not yours, since you said you were staying in a hotel."

"Uncle Auggy bought this place for his _real _son." Jim stated; half bitterly, half snarkily, "His real son didn't want it though. The two don't get along—especially not since he found out his dear old dad was cheating on his mum with women about every other country."

He sneered and then pushed the door open, walking in.

"And you were the one who told him?" Molly assumed, following him in and the politely shutting the door behind her.

The two now stood in the entryway of the flat, just before the sittingroom. Neither of them knew where the lightswitch was so they stood in the dark. The walls were white, unpainted even though the flat was owned, but in the lack of light they looked a dreary gray.

"I've never met him." Jim shrugged, not answering the question, "August won't introduce me. Probably thinks I'd be a bad influence. But he's no better than I am. High-and-mighty Lord Moran smuggles capitalist goods into communist countries and makes a pretty penny doing it. Did he tell you that while he was trying to scare you away from me by informing you of what kind of person I am?"

"No." Molly shook her head, "…And don't think he would want either of us in here—especially me."

"You're right." Jim smirked, "I stole this key from his mailbox when his son mailed it back to him. It didn't even have a note with it in the envelope. Just the original letter Aug had sent his son, named Sebastian—who, by the way, probably never forgave his father for giving him such a stupid name—since Sebastian wouldn't answer his phone calls."

"Why'd you take it?" Molly asked, "And why were you even looking through Lord Moran's mail?" She ran her hands along the plaster walls, searching for the lightswitch. It was around nine at night now, so no light from the sun or even the sunset could illuminate the room.

Jim chuckled.

"I was bored." He delivered the standard, shrugging response, that was never the whole story but always part of it. "Besides, there's no sense in letting such a nice flat go to waste. I might as well claim it as my own. I need somewhere to bring you so we can be _alone…" _he smirked._ "_And just because August can't keep a girlfriend for more than a night, doesn't mean that _I'm_ not allowed to."

The lights suddenly switched on.

"I'm not your girlfriend." Molly declared.

She glared at Jim. He winked back.

"I'll fix that soon enough." He replied, "It's what I do. Fix things…"

"Why would _you_ even want _me_ as a girlfriend?" Molly scoffed, although it was serious question, "Lord Moran said you like me because I'm 'moral, kind and optimistic'. Yes, I _am_ polite and try to be kind…but so do most people. Same with being moral. You could find anyone who fits that description. And as for 'optimistic', I'm really _not._ I've seen terrible things and I understand more than most what it means that we all will die. I also know that happiness never lasts. I try to enjoy life while I have it and while I can because of that…but I'm _not _optimistic. And as morbid as it sounds, it's true that things always end up going wrong, in the end, and, in the end, everyone always dies."

"'Lord Moran' was wrong." Jim stated, "And what you just said is the _real_ reason why I like you, Molly. You know the truth and you _still _try to spite it. You're like _me,_ in that way. You allow yourself to want _more._ More than you believe you deserve or will ever have, even if you did deserve it. You want to be _something._ Not just to play with the big boys, like Sherlock and me. You want to _be_ a big boy—or big _girl,_ in your case. You want to be _important._ And you're working to make yourself that. Good hustle. But you know how this'll end, too, and yet you're still here. Death or heartbreak. Or both. How could it ever be any other way?"

"'_Death or heartbreak'…_It couldn't be any other way." Molly agreed, shaking her head solemnly but with certainty,"…but for which one of us?"

* * *

><p><strong>There were multiple train crashes and other mass death accidents during the 1988-1989 period. And some kind of investment bankerstock trader type did die, but in a boat crash instead of a train crash. **

**Hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

**Please review!**


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